These are some of my harvests from the past couple weeks.
I picked one small but delicious Sugar Baby Watermelon. I was very pleased with this and will plant these again and try to do better next year. I had two plants and will try 6 next year.
The tiny little melon on the plate with the watermelon is the single cantaloupe I got. A Charantais. Unripe miniature and not good tasting. It was not a good year for melons, and I made several mistakes with this crop. I scattered a few plants of different types here and there in the garden, mostly under things. Under the corn, under the squash. They were blocked from the little sun we got. And they probably needed richer soil. I’ like to try again, and plant them in very rich soil where nothing will block them.
I’ve been harvesting a lot of broccoli shoots and a few big heads now and then – still from my spring planting. I think the shoots are like supermarket broccolini, which I’ve always wanted to grow. I’ve never been able to figure out what broccolini is.
My husband processed the basil into nice pesto. (Here’s our recipe.) That’s about 1/4 of my crop. Its been a good basil year.
And my eggplant have beat the Blight and are doing great now. I have big plans for eggplant Parmesan this weekend. (Here’s that recipe.)
Finally, the unripe Butternut squash I harvested out of curiosity. It smelled nice, like a melon when I sliced it. Nice tender skin like a summer squash. Faintly greenish orange flesh. Tender seeds. We grilled it with olive oil and salt. The taste – well, bland and mealy – generally not to our liking. I’ll wait ’til the rest are properly ripe.
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Thank you for the tip on the butternut squash…I have to that are almost ripe…i will let them ripe the rest of the way..Your basil recipe sounds great…Will be trying that..Thank you for sharing..Lisa
such a good harvest…. we had run out of green veggies.., only ulam raja left and roselles. Seeing these in your blog give me ideas what to grow next… Thanks and have a great weekend, ~bangchik
Kathy – Where did you get your Sugar Baby Watermelon seeds? I'd like to try small watermelon next year too. I really enjoy your blog and learn a lot!
Your watermelon looks beautiful – I want to try growing them too, next season. I tried cantaloupe this year with no success, but a friend of mine grows pumpkins every year in our zone, so I can't imagine that watermelons would be that different? Not sure. Anyway, great post & nice pics 🙂
The squash was gross? Well, I'll be darned it was great with an underripe delicata!
I really like your blog, I'm sorry I won't be coming back. But the constant popup ads… I assume this is deliberate, since no other blog I read does this.
Hi Anonymous,
They are certainly not deliberate on may part. I'll keep trying to figure this out. Are you Karen Anne who mentioned this problem before? No one else has mentioned a problem with popups. (Please leave a comment here if you are getting popup ads on this site!) I have not experienced this myself with Firefox or Explorer. Check back later, please.
Kathy
Hi again anonymous,
I remove the most recent widget I added, to see if that eliminates the popup ads. Please let me know if more show up. Thanks.
Kathy
The Sugar Baby watermelon seeds are form Johnny's Selected Seeds.
I do think pumpkins are easier in my area than watermelons (and much easier than cantaloupes). I have a dozen good sized pumpkins this year, one undersized watermelon, and no cantaloupes. But a challenge is good.
bz wax, The immature squash was just not to our liking. Fun to try. Of course you can't beat Delicata! That's the best squash.
HI, Kathy,
No, I'm still here. Does make my nervous system jump when when of those appears, but it didn't happen this time, for whatever that's worth.
Oh good. I think it may have been the widget I deleted. I'll find another source for it.