Pages

Sunday 29 July 2012

18 lbs of Cucumber and Growing

It's a funny thing with vegetable gardens.  I spent a lot of time earlier in the spring getting it all ready.  Chuck ran the rototiller over the ground for me, but then it was me for six weeks getting everything planted.  And then it was nothing.  Everything was growing just as it was meant to - no input required from me at all (well - OK, I turned the hose on to run the sprinkler, but that was it).

But now the work is starting again.  I went out this morning to have a look at everything and I think much of it is ready to harvest.  I filled a bowl with beans, found a zucchini about the size of a baseball bat, pulled a carrot for sampling (yummy) and decided to have a look for cucumbers.  


There is a lot of grass growing around the cucumber plants so it's kinda hard to see what's there.  I started pulling leaves aside and honestly, there was a cucumber party happening here.  I picked 11 cucumbers - 10 of which were heavier than a pound and there's a whole pile of blossoms there too, so there will be more.  Many many more.  

There's also an acorn squash that is almost big enough, and 5 sugar pumpkins with piles of additional blossoms.  


I've probably got 50 white and another 30 red onions and I don't really care to speculate on the quantity of tomatoes I have, but I don't think I'll be buying tomato sauce this winter.


It isn't all roses though - the potatoes took a terrible beating from the potato beetle infestation we had earlier.  Between the bugs and the drought, the plants have all died.  I do have some potatoes though - I have little tiny russets about the size of the little wee ones you can get now.



Anyway, it was two trips to get everything up to the house where I weighed it all.
  • 3 lbs of beans
  • 18 lbs of cucumber
  • 3.3 lbs of zucchini
 The beans have been blanched and are now in the freezer, the cucumbers have a date with my stockpot for pickles and the zucchini is sitting on the counter looking at me.  I think part of it'll be zucchini bread, and the rest will be shredded and frozen.  It'll be a nice addition to soup in the fall.

1 comment:

  1. What a great harvest! I would be proud to have that many veggies! I love zucchini bread and have a super yummy zucchini soup recipe. Hope you were able to enjoy it over the winter!

    ReplyDelete