Thankful for the harvest

 Various tomatoes and beans in the kitchen.

We're almost at the end of growing warm season vegetables and autumn is near. I'm happy to harvest what we have regardless of neglect in my garden. I hardly fertilized or pruned anything, failed to pull weeds, or take care of the garden properly because I've been a busy bee. Surprisingly, most of everything that started from seeds managed to survive the stress of moving. We traveled by car in 3 days at 900 miles with my garden when we left California. Veggies weren't prolific this year, they also grew slowly and some didn't even produce. Whatever happened to my cucumber, cantaloupes and okra? It's alright, I'll try again next season. Never give up!
     

I want more tomatoes… maybe they'll continue to ripen until the end of this month. Cherry tomatoes (Chadwick and Rainbow blend) did fabulous, most roma suffered blossom end rot, yuck! In the back of the basket were new tomatoes in my garden, they're organic heirloom called Speckled Roman, interesting in appearance and tasted wonderful. New organic varieties as well were San Marzano, Ace, Debarao, Legend, and yellow pear. I'll be sowing these seeds again in the future. I'm still waiting for green zebra, tangerine and pruden's purple tomatoes to ripen.

A closer look at Roman Speckled tomatoes.

A couple of Roman Speckled went to my homemade salsa along with roasted garlic, onions, mariachi and jalapeño peppers – scrumptious with a handful of cilantro, a little cumin, lime, and Lawry's® seasoning. I served the fresh salsa with fish tacos for dinner.

Honestly, I became impatient and had doubts about my new garden in Idaho. For instance, my tomatillo verde are pathetic – they're super tiny and a few plants failed to produce fruit. Several flowers in my garden died too. Furthermore, I experienced my first blossom end rot with roma tomatoes. After all, I was crazy busy to tend the garden. However, I should appreciate all the harvest and be grateful to God for our blessings of eating healthy from the garden. Each gardener experience trials and success. This is just my second year growing from seeds. I like to plant everything and that can get overwhelming. I have plenty to learn and as gardeners, we continue to learn. 

The cocozelle got enormous. My delicious organic heirloom won first place at our local fair! Out of all the squash I planted, the lovely cocozelle produced quite well.

I have no idea what happened to the patty pan squash but I harvested only one. I don't know the flavor so my husband and I will be trying it soon. I thought the yellow straightneck wouldn't produce any longer but we got another one. Yellow straightneck or crookneck didn't do great in my garden.

Russian Mammoth sunflower planted from seeds, it's almost 8 feet tall and beginning to bloom. I'm looking forward to seeing the full size of the flower. Sunflowers always cheer me up. 

What was successful in your garden and what didn't work this year? 
I wish you all a fantastic weekend!