Painted wings and giant rings

A few weeks ago I thinned out the carrots and beets and roasted them up, and today I pulled the rest of them, along with the swiss chard and the collards out to make room for the squash that are trying to take over the garden and to start the fall planting.

These are the collards, or maybe kale, it’s hard to tell after the bugs got most of them. There were lessons learned here…

Next up the swiss chard, which I had actually forgotten about since it looks so much like the beets, except there’s no beet. It did surprisingly well. I think I’ll definitely plant some next year, but I won’t put it next to the beets this time. I am also trying a fall harvest of this one. 

These are the last of my tiny carrots. I really should have harvested them a few weeks ago as bugs got in and chewed up the top half of most of them, but they are very cute. I’ve also put in a new batch of these since they seem to grow fast.

And of course the beets. These I am most happy about. They grew perfectly except for where I planted them too close together and they are delicious. I’ve put in a second crop of these as well.

Left in garden are four squash like plants. They are either gourds, watermelons, butternut squash or pumpkins. For the most part they are just starting to fruit now, so I don’t have much hope for them, but perhaps their trellising (pipe cleaners) will help. We have a few small green things growing, which look like gourds to me, but I’m not sure. And one tiny cucumber. Also tiny green onions which we’ve been using as needed.

I also left the basil in as we are using straight from the garden. In the back there are also some eggplants that are flowering and might perhaps produce some tiny eggplants before it gets too cold. 

Little tiny gourds?

Also included in the fall planting, cilantro, radishes (all mine got too hot too quickly and died this spring) and some snap peas that I need to get another cage for. I’m not going to be heart broken if this batch doesn’t make it, but we had so many left over seeds I figured I might as well plant them!