My Vegetable Garden in August

As with any gardening endeavor there are successes and failures. This year the peppers are a big success but the eggplants were a failure. I have no photo of the latter because I pulled them earlier this week.

Bell and Cubanelle peppers on Friday.

Among the tomatoes the Goldie and Rutgers are successes but the Amish paste are a disappointment.

I keep having to trim back the dying portions of the Amish paste. It's trying to put out new growth.

This one Rutgers is dying too, but the other plants are doing fine.

The Goldie is still flowering so there's hope for more tomatoes to come.

The zucchini were great while they lasted and though there are three plants hanging on despite the attack of the vine borers they are not producing at the level that they were and I wonder if I shouldn't pull them soon if no more fruit are visible.



Cucumbers have been an easy success. The deer have eaten some leaves on the outside of the fence but that's okay. Many more cucumbers to come.

In the too soon to tell if its a success or failure are butternut squash that I planted late.

Also broccoli planted weeks ago but only one seed germinated or survived the heat. I planted more today. I hope this one doesn't succumb to the heat, too.

In the same bed with the broccoli are two rows of lettuce that are doing okay. They get shaded by the netting which protects them from the bunnies. Spinach sowed at the same time did not survive. I will try that again later this month.

Finally, the bush beans will probably be a success. This is the second sowing of beans which became a prized attraction in my garden with the bunnies.

Wordless Wednesday - More from My Garden Visiting

Harvest Monday

I imagine you can see that the theme is tomatoes for my harvests. Most of these have been quartered and frozen (I don't can). I served the goldies in a salad with cucumbers, red onions, and basil from the garden along with mozzarella cheese and a light dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar and sugar. It was a big hit at the dinner with nothing left in the dish. Other tomatoes have gone into scalloped tomatoes which is a summer favorite, on to BLT sandwiches, sliced with pepper, and into salads. I don't know how much longer the tomatoes will produce because the heat is getting to them. There are few to none blossoms out there.

Zucchini production is slowing as the plants are contending with invaders and the heat.

I will pick more peppers soon as they seem to max out their growing.

Cucumbers are still showing new buds and don't seem to mind the heat.

Finally the basil has recovered from whatever was ailing it and is giving me some nice sized leaves. I'll need to freeze that with olive oil since that was nice to have all winter last year.

You can see other gardeners' harvests at our host Daphne's Dandelions.

Author Recommendation

I haven't written a post about books in awhile so here goes for all of you expecting something along those lines.

Do you ever come across an author that you really enjoy reading and end up just getting books by that author? Well, that's what has happened to me of late. I read "Prayers for Sale" by Sandra Dallas and really enjoyed it. So instead of consulting my little book of recommendations the last two times I was at the library, I went to the Ds and looked for more books by Sandra Dallas. In the last two trips there I've come home with "The Chili Queen", "Whiter Than Snow", and "Alice's Tulips" all of which I've read and enjoyed. I'm now starting on "Tallgrass".

These are all historical fiction which I really like. They give you a window into what life was like in the past particularly parts of the West like Colorado during the time of the Civil War or afterward. The main characters are women, so easy to identify with and though I'm not a quilter each of the characters is a quilter and ends up connecting to other women with quilting.

If you have to decide on one of these to read look for "Prayers for Sale". It has been my favorite so far.