Harvest

Fall Harvest. It’s not much of a ‘bounty’ around here. Sadly, we let our garden just go crazy with no pruning or cutting back, and the squash and tomotoes are sprawling all over the place. Even the ones I caged have tipped over their cages. We had to put a little fence around the garden to keep the chickens out, but they have learned they can fly over that little fence or worm in around the gate, and many of my tomatoes are beak picked.

Because I have heard it will be cold later this week, we went out and picked all the tomatoes we could find that were at all ripe. Seriously, what is with the ripening (or lack therof?) Most of my tomatoes are green, and the ones that have color are mostly orange. I picked the orange ones and brought them in to ripen. I can hope.

I also picked a couple of butternut squash, but left some others out there to grow some more. Don’t want to pick them too early. I have ONE tiny pumpkin among the leaves, and since it was orange, we picked it and brought it in.

Can you tell which one is the pumpkin?

I have another place where I planted a pumpkin seed, and in the whole sprawl, I think there is one pumpkin there, too. Then, in my front flower beds, we see this.

If you look closely, you can see our biggest pumpkins of the harvest.

And this from a volunteer plant. At the end of Halloween last year, I chucked an old gross pumpkin off the porch into the flower bed, and it’s decided to grow and produce pumpkins for us.

Oh, and here’s my little outside visitor, hoping to someday be let inside.

Really, kitty? You’ve lived here for a whole year now, and in that time has anyone let you in? Sorry. If you wanted to come inside, you should have latched on to a family without allergies.

Yesterday we did find the hidden stash of eggs from the chickens, though. I had been wondering why they were only laying 5-6 a day, when all 11 of them should be laying at least every other day, now. They had a secret next, silly girls.

Yes, most of those were pretty dirty, but still good eggs. I made a big batch of brownies and used MOST of them in that, just to use them up quickly.

So, no, we’re not self sufficient and living off of what we grow, but we at least try.