pickles!

we have had a bumper crop of cucumbers! their plenty has well made up for their tardiness.

when we lived in philly and shopped at our local co-op they always carried kirby-style pickling cucumbers, and they became our regular cucumbers. i had never had these kind of cucumbers before . i was accustomed to the typical variety you find at the grocery store, which can be good, but this other kind of cucumber is delicious with the skin on, they can be sweet, the are crunchy, and they are wonderful! here in seattle these cucumbers are hard to find. so i was excited to grow our favorites so we could enjoy them again.

they were slow starters, but now they have completely taken over their little corner of the garden and are starting to take over the path. at first we were trying to keep up by eating them with lunch and dinner, but then i started stock piling so that i could make some actual pickles. we settled on a bread and butter pickle recipe and made a batch last weekend. we won't know how they turned out for 2 more weeks. i am EXCITED!


tomato update: there are many tomatoes on the vine still. so far we have gotten two truly red edible tomatoes. there are maybe a dozen or so that are ripening now and then there are MANY green ones. i pruned like crazy the other day in the hopes that the ones that are red will actually ripen, and i pruned a bunch of green tomatoes that will become green tomato relish this weekend!

i have even harvested a few fish peppers and there are a few more on the vine! i haven't tried them yet, i am thinking of

the beans are pretty much all done, the zucchinis are slowing down (i am going to make some zucchini refrigerator pickles this weekend too!), and the chard is hanging in there. the new batch of lettuce is doing well, we have had a couple salads from it already. it's almost time to plant some fall crops: brocoli raab, kale, another batch of chard perhaps, and some arugula again!

today is the first day in a long time that i have had any time to send in the garden. there's not much going on out there other than maintenance right now. pruning and cleaning up, putting a few things in the ground, weeding, etc... SO i'm going to get out there!!!