Today's Harvest: Veggies, Flowers, and Seeds

The summer veggies have slowed down their production, but I don't mind too much since work has been busy and I haven't had as much time as I would like to try new recipes with my fresh produce.  This weekend, I got one pepper, a few okra, a Black Beauty eggplant (that has more yellow than purple/black coloring), several cherry tomatoes and a couple of the last cukes off my summer vines.  I'm starting to look forward to some new veggies, and with it new recipes, from the fall garden...but that's a few months away.

While clearing out some of the summer veggie beds to make room for the fall planting, I cleared out some of the zinnia plants that were taking over the beds, or that had seen better days.  I saved the nicest blooms for a nice bouquet for the kitchen.  Zinnias add so much color to the veggie beds, attract pollinators, and make great cut flowers.  I love these flowers so much, and so do the hummingbirds, who I see flitting around the flowers multiple times a day.

I want to be better about collecting my own seeds for future use and to share with friends, so while I was clearing the beds this weekend, I also gathered some seeds.  There were a few dried green bean pods of Bush Blue Lake 274 that I collected.  There weren't many, so I'll have to make sure to leave more pods on the plants for seed collecting next time around.  The marigolds are dropping their seed pods like crazy right now too, so I collected more than enough for myself and for my friends for next year.

Harvest Totals (since April)

• 5 lbs Cherry Bell Radishes

• 3 lbs Giant Fordhook Swiss Chard

• 3 lb 5.5 oz Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash (5 squash)

• 5 lbs 6.3 oz Black Beauty Zucchini (3 squash)

• 13.7 oz Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas

• 11.6 oz Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno (13)
• 11.9 oz Jalapeno

• 2 lb 2.4 oz Bush Blue Lake 274 Green Beans

• 1 lb 4.6 oz Gypsy Sweet Peppers (10)

• 1 lb 15.9 oz Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato

• 2 lb 7.5 oz Juliet Roma Grape Tomato

• 3 lb 12.0 oz Early Girl Tomato (12)
• 1 lb 10.4 oz Big Boy Tomato (3)
• 1 lb 7.3 oz oz Bradley Heirloom Tomato (4)
• 2 lb 2.3 oz Roma Tomato (22)
• 4 lb 4.4 oz Long Eggplant (16)
• 7 lb 1.5 oz Black Beauty Eggplant (6)
• 10.9 oz Pablano Pepper (5)
• 1 lb 2.0 oz Acorn Squash (1)
• 1 lb 1.0 oz Butternut Squash (1)
• 1 lb 6.6 oz Spaghetti Squash (1)
• 1 lb 3.1 oz Green Bell Sweet Pepper (6)
• 1.1 oz Cayenne Pepper (3)
• 11 lb 11.1 oz Marketmore 76 Cucumbers (11)
• 3 lb 7.9 oz Okra (63)