Gardens almost done!

Finally!! The harvest time is coming to an end!! I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I am not! But having a garden that produces at such massive amounts (for it's size) is a LOT of work!!

We picked the rest of the tomatoes and pulled out the plants. Whew! Overall, we estimated that we got around 400lbs of tomatoes that we could use off of 10 plants! There were lots that we rotten by the time we picked etc but those werent counted in that total. And just for sake of keeping track, we bought them as small plants at the co-op and they were called "jet stars". 

This is the final pick...greener ones on the left and more ripe ones on the right. Now I might have a few days to relax before starting on canning these!!  With the others, we've canned diced tomatoes, stewed, sauce, juice, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, and salsa!

Our peppers weren't as plentiful, only about 4 peppers per plant is what we got, but they were good!! They stayed green for a long time, & actually most are still green but some have ripened to red and look beautiful! They also were from the co-op as plants and were called "red knights".

Our watermelon has been great too, giving us a bounty of them. We've only picked 2 but they have been delicious! Nathan said the first one was the best one from the garden he's ever tasted! Two hills planted, seeds from the co-op, producing around 10-15 watermelon.

And oh the zucchini!!!! I am still drowning in zucchini. So much zucchini!!! I have been freezing most of it but am running out of room. The favorites to make is zucchini casserole, zucchini bread (both reg & chocolate) & the new fav, zucchini cobbler that tastes EXACTLY like apple. Yum!!  

Only 2 hills planted.

The tangled web of a little snipet of our zucchini plants. 

We've given up on our cucumber bc there was so much and it grew so fast that we couldn't catch them while they were good & little anymore. Once they get too big they aren't much good. We still find little ones now and again but Nathan will pull them tomorrow. We canned quite a bit of pickles though. 

We also got massive amounts of green beans which we've canned & froze. Peas did ok, although we just ate most of them. But the one thing that grew amazingly huge but didn't produce any heads is the cauliflower! We still have to research why that was so we are still not sure?

You can tell the size compare to that gallon bucket. Huge leaves, no cauliflower! 

Overall it was a great first learning year. We learned we need a bigger spaced garden!! :)