Gleaning the Field

I harvested from the garden three times in the past week.  Tomatoes and summer squash are almost totally spent, but pole beans, yard-long beans, and winter squash are coming on strong.

This batch of veg is from September 17.  From the top, we have green yard-long beans, 2 butternut squash, eggplant, a few tomatoes, a moulin rouge sunflower head, cowpeas, a lone fig, and a pile of purple yard-long beans.

This is from September 21.  More of the same, although most of the tomatoes are cherry-type, there's basil there in the upper right corner...purple and green varieties, and a bunch of purple and green pole beans below them.

With supper that night, I cooked ditalini, a small macaroni-like pasta, then mixed in sliced cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, shredded cheese, vinagrette...chilled it in the fridge, and it was a hit.  My older son had seconds.

I'm also cooking the beans (pole and yard-long) in a tasty but very heart-unhealthy way.  I fry up 4 or 5 slices of bacon in a stockpot, take out the crisp bacon.  Add chicken broth or stock, add beans, salt, pepper, and crumble the bacon on top.  Stir, boil till tender, and serve.

This is from yesterday, September 22.  A branch of a bell pepper plant broke off in the rain, so I harvested 4 baby bells.  There are also 2 figs in the picture, but the big boy there is a crook-neck pumpkin that volunteered out of my compost pile.  He's got 3 younger brothers that haven't fully matured yet, so you will see more of these monsters soon.