Garden Harvest & Update October 16

I am LOVING how much gardening continues to happen here in my little 320 square feet of beds. This was a particualrly strong week in terms of harvest poundage, mostly because I pulled plants from the ground and thus, harvested whatever was left on them. Lows into the 30's are coming our way, so I decided I didn't want to deal with babying these plants and instead, ripped 'em out. I'm just harsh that way. Plus, they looked messy. I'm not a fan of messy.

Let's take a look at the view out my doorwall. ("doorwall" is what we Hockeytown folks call a "sliding glass door". Seriously. Realtors even list it that way, so it must be a real word!). This shot was taken on a misty morning. The garden is in the far corner, surrounded by my very much thriving yellow marigolds. Everyone asks about our little blue shed. It was turned that way when we bought the house; we added the fake window (it's mirror panels!) and old shutters. It looks so cute!

Lovin' my GINORMOUS purple aster. It is nearly 3 feet across and approaching 30" tall. Absolutely glorious. My next door neighbor has the BEST view of it out her laundry room window. 

A bit of a closer shot, you can see what's left of the garden. It's looking very messy. I'm not a fan of messy (yes, I live with 3 boys and a husband-and they are indeed messy, but *I* am not a messy person.)

See? It's all floppy plants, yellowing plants and gigantic cruciferous plants. And the trash-to-treasure trellis items need to go. Blech. MESSY!!!!

Ok, on to my harvests for the week. I've not had a garden going this strong well into October before. I should note that while I've gardened in that back corner for 12+ years, this is the first year that I was SERIOUS and DELIBERATE about planting things and trying to grow much of what we ate.

Some awesome green onions. We have been so spoiled by being able to go out back and pick whatever we need for salads or nachos or dips. We will really miss these when they're gone. Bryce will miss pulling them for me. 

Another pepper that managed to fully ripen. It was DELICIOUS. I ate it in one sitting. 

Pepper palooza! With forecasts showing temps in the 30's, it was time to pull the bell pepper plants and  harvest all those green peppers. If the weather would've been unseasonably warm for maybe 2 more weeks, these guys would've ripened to  red or yellow. Oh well. This was 7lbs worth-we used some in fajitas that night for dinner and the rest I took to church. One of my friends took most of them & planned on making stuffed peppers for dinner. (yum!)

Check out this pretty harvest. That is 1 pound of cauliflower and combined with the broccoli was enough for us for dinner. The pea pods are producing nicely in the cool weather, but continue to just be enough for a snack. I have cherry tomatoes managing to ripen on the vine and some Anaheims, too. 

My harvest totals have reached numbers that I'd only imagined. As of October 16, I've harvested 220 pounds of produce from our humble little garden. With brussel sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, peas and carrots still growing, who knows what number I'll hit once December rolls around.

This post linked to Daphne's Dandelions. Go check out what HER harvests are like!!!