Monday September 29

It's the end of September and the beans are still going strong.  I don't expect that to last much longer though.  The duration of sunlight on the vegetable beds is shrinking rapidly as the trees to the south and west come into play.  This is the garden in mid-afternoon and it's already in shade.  Most of the shade comes from an oak tree southwest of the beds.  Next spring I intend to take it down.

Still I'm getting beans, peppers, and summer squash.  Over 4 pounds of beans for the week, most of them Fortex.  Guess I'll have to freeze more beans.  The pepper is a Round of Hungary, very sweet pepper.

The winter squash have been curing in the sun over two weeks and are ready for storage.  The Teksukabotu doubled the yield of the butternuts.   Many of the Teksukabotu weighed in at over 4 pounds while the largest butternut weighed 3 pounds 11 oz.  Over 11 pounds of butternuts and not quite 23 pounds of the Teks.

I've wondered how the Teksukabotu could sustain such long vines from a central root system.  Here they are running amok down the slope toward the pond.  It's looking pretty unkempt in this area.  I need to build a trellis for the raspberry plants soon.

The vines set down now roots as they grow.  Here's a vine that was pulled up.  It puts down a root every foot or so.

The weather here has been very warm and sunny for the last two weeks, but all that will change by week's end when the temperatures drop.  Then the yields fresh vegetables will plummet, but until then I'll enjoy the bounty.  I'm hoping to pick another batch of chilis before the weather turns - they are nearly ready.

For the week I got 41 pounds, most of that winter squash.  I had to remove the last picking of Acorn squash from the totals.  Turned out they weren't any good, just rotting in the cupboard.  They didn't look right but I thought that was just they way they looked.  Not so.  Still I'm easily on track to make 300 pounds.  There's still sweet potatoes, parsnip and a second batch of winter squash to harvest.