These are just the tomatoes from the last couple days. My next canning day will involve making some salsa with my bounty (the cherry tomatoes make it especially sweet).
The peppers have been enjoying the warm days and we have frozen almost 3 gallon freezer bags full of them. They simply get washed, cut in half, cleaned of seeds and thrown into a freezer bag. When I want a fresh pepper in a meal I just take out halves as needed.
I also slice up the tops I cut off (minus the stem) and dehydrate them. I hate to waste any part of my harvest if I can help it.
The pole beans have almost reached the tops of their pole tipis and are producing wildly as usual. Even though I only planted one small bed I still managed to pick almost a gallon bag full of beans the other night.
This is not even counting the giant ones I took out to feed to the chickens. I think the huge beans don't freeze or dehydrate well so I don't mind sharing them with the chickens.
The zucchini and yellow squash are on their last legs and that is ok with me. I have at least four quart jars jam packed with dehydrated squash chips, though I prefer to eat them fresh when I can. The cucumbers are starting to falter but I think it has more to do with uneven watering than any actual problem with the plants. I am getting a lot of fruits that are huge at one end and and tiny at the other. I am a little wary of pickling the misshapen cucumbers because they tend to be bitter. They also are hard to pack nicely into the jars for pickling.
I have also gotten in a few nice harvests of celery.
The tops go into the freezer to be made into stock later when time allows. The stems I have decided to dehydrate for soups and such later.
A quick after work harvest of a few tomatoes, a handful of green beans and an actual delicata squash. I guess some of the seeds in that pack really are delicata squash after all. It roasted up beautifully with a little bit of butter and brown sugar.
I have started the onion harvest since many of the tops have fallen over. I was trying to wait until we had a sunny day or two in a row so I could cure them before I put them away in the back room.
For now I am settling on harvesting only the onions that have fallen over and curing them in the back window with a fan to help them dry out. The onions that are still standing will hopefully cure in the sun the way they were meant to.
I have also started to harvest the dried beans little by little. I still can't believe how many beans I am getting from the tiny packet of seeds I planted. So far I have only harvested a quarter or so of the bean patch between rainy spells, so I may even get enough to try out in a pot of chili this winter. What beans I don't eat will become next years crop, and I'm sure I will be able to fill the bed when I plant next year.
I am a little sad to know that the summer season is passing it's peak. Now the time for preserving and storing the harvests is upon us and I will have to work hard to get everything done. This time of year it seems like everything happens all at once and all I can do is just try to keep up.
Those are great harvests! I am growing some beans for drying this year for the first time and am a little uncertain about when to harvest them. I know what you mean about being sad to see the summer passing; I feel the same way!
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