This first harvest was fast and hurried. I was throwing produce into a basket as fast as I could one evening, slapping mosquitoes and trying to get it all picked before I lost daylight. I was surprised and very happy to find a couple fat cukes. I thought all my cucumber vines had died sad deaths, but the garden proved me wrong.
Despite that giant basket of veg picked earlier in the week, the weekend haul was still ridiculous. Left to right in this picture, we've got purple and green pole beans, green yard-long beans, sweet banana peppers, hot thai bird peppers, purple yard-long beans, and then the basket of tomatoes.
I have been growing these red bird peppers for 8 years. A neighbor gave me one of his plants, and I've been harvesting and drying the fruit and growing new plants from the seeds ever since. These little hot peppers were the beginning of my gardening hobby, and I will always grow them. Not only are they one of the most attractive plants I grow, they are also a fiery hot test of manhood. I can count on them to reduce someone at my workplace into a gasping, crying, milk-guzzling pool of jelly at least once a year.
Yes, I am a bad man.
This time of year, I still get a lot of cherry tomatoes, but larger types are in short supply. I was able to pick 5 or 6 slicers, and I was happy to get them. Many of my late-season cherry tomatoes are actually coming from volunteer plants that I allowed to mature...black cherry and ildi yellow varieties in particular.
September is the traditional harvest month, so I suppose it all makes sense. My wife mentioned that Wednesday night there will be a Harvest Moon; the closest full moon to the autumn equinox...and a haunting Neil Young tune...
"But there's a full moon rising,
Let's go dancing in the light."
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