Pears and Apples

 Fruit!

Our apple tree produced fruit for the first time ever, and the pear tree is loaded!

Gala Apples look like ornaments hanging from the tree

So many pears!

They look like garlands weighting down the tree!

We love eating apples and pears, sliced thinly, along with a nice aged cheddar or a creamy blue cheese.

Lots of "Yuck Bucket" Squash Growing in the Garden

"Yuck Bucket" is what we call the can we use to collect kitchen scraps to throw on the compost pile. Sometimes a few of the seeds don't get sufficiently composted before being spread onto the garden beds, resulting in serendipitous plantings about the garden. This year we had a bounty of 'surprise' squash plants. Here is the fruit of one such vine:

Lovely to look at. Reminds one of "delicata" squash. But the skin is HARD... very difficult to cut. I roasted them anyway, and served them to the family. FAIL! Granddaughter E said the flesh tasted like VELCRO!! 😂

Okra is not thriving...

 In fact, some plants have died. What's going on?

I pulled up one of the dead plants to find root nematodes.

Not a pretty sight!

Here's what I found at:  Okra Root Knot Nematodes

"Root knot nematodes are tiny eelworms that live in the soil and become plant parasites when they use okra roots as their nurseries. Often nematodes enter okra roots through small injuries. As their numbers muliply, small feeder roots are destroyed, and irregular galls take their place." 

Well ... that's just great!

A bit early to harvest the winter squash, but ...

We haven't had enough rain. The winter squash vines are drying up. I hope the fruit is ripe enough. No matter, they must be picked.

In the foreground: candy roaster squash, seeds from son Andrew

The stripey squash behind that: delicata, also seeds from son Andrew

The big yellow ones: spaghetti squash, volunteered from compost

Sweet 100's cherry tomatoes, a couple of Rouse's traditional tomatoes, jade green beans in the back

Cherry-Type Tomato

This is a large oblong cherry tomato. Sturdy, not too juicy, very flavorful. So sweet when roasted! Too bad I can't remember the actual variety! 🙄 

 

BLT

First BLT of the season.

First delicious tomato (outside cherry tomatoes) that we've ever had!

Seriously, I have given up on a traditional tomato crop in our garden space. But Rouse the Spouse insists on planting and hoping for a bona-fide home-grown tomato. Finally, this year, he got his wish!

 PS: Yeah ... that's Duke's mayonnaise 😄

Basil PEST-o

I processed a big batch of basic basil and garlic pesto to be frozen for future use. These critters managed to sneak into the house on the basil leaves. Yellow and spiny, about 1/2" long... the larval stage of the Mexican Bean Beetle. They prefer bean leaves, but will obviously snack upon other crops as well.

more info here:

https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/veg/bean/mexican_bean_beetle.htm