Morning Harvests

I have started my late summer routine of going through the garden every morning and picking what has grown to a good picking size.  I take a small basket with me and walk the rows with it, digging through the jungle of plants looking for treasure.  Every morning I am rewarded with baskets of goodies.

At first the baskets only had a handful of each crop, but as the summer wears on, the baskets fill quickly and I need to make several trips to the kitchen to deposit my prizes to make room for more.  The variety of crops I gather changes slightly from day to day depending on how fast certain crops are ripening.


Right now the summer squash are at full production and I am getting so many that I have been giving them away by the bag.  The cucumbers are just getting started and it takes a few days to fill a gallon bag.  In a few weeks I fear I will be filling a gallon bag a day and I will be spending hours in my kitchen canning pickles when I am not at work.  The green beans are just starting to come in finally, and I hope that even though they got a late start I will still get a decent harvest of them for the freezer.  My peppers are loaded with fruit, but they are slow to ripen yet, so I am just picking them for fresh eating right now.  Once they ripen and change color I will have a rainbow selection of peppers for my salsa recipes and for the freezer.  The tomatoes are also being slow to ripen.  I have only found a grand total of five ripe tomatoes so far, though the plants are heavy with green ones.  I am doing my best to clear out the freezer so I have room for the mountains of veggies that are growing to fill it.