Hi Everyone,

Today's Harvest 62 lbs.        YTD 919 lbs.

On a warmish day when I wasn't expecting many, we had a great crew with the two Marthas, Mary Elizabeth, Rita, Peggy, G.A., Jamie, Cathy, Susan, Barbara, Nancy Crompton (newbie), Steve, Nancy and myself.

Loaded up in Cathy's vehicle.

We got busy right away with the harvest. Look at all those yellow wax beans! They are really prolific. Other things we picked were cucumbers (finally), squash, okra, peppers, eggplant, lots of different varieties of bush beans, Bubba's Black Beans, tomatoes, herbs and chard.

Burgundy Beans

I must amend my statement about the Burgundy beans being poor producers. Apparently they were just taking their time! We got almost 5 lbs. today and more on the way.

Butternut Squash....ain't they pretty?

The butternut are really looking good. We picked some squash bugs and eggs off today, but they still look nice and green with little squash looking very healthy. They start out kind of green and striped, but then turn to the tan color as they mature. The one above is just starting to turn tan. Martha Payne has a recipe for an appetizer with butternut squash on puff pastry with sage on top. When we deliver the butternut, we will send along some sage and the recipe.

Barbara and the sunflowers.

We've been having problems with something getting many of the sunflowers that we planted, but the pic shows some that have survived. These are mixed, and the first ones to bloom have been the dark rust colored ones. We have some recently planted along the fence that will look nice in early fall.

Two rows of compact okra coming along nicely.

G.A. filled in with some more beet seeds in the bed with poor germination. Martha weeded the peanuts and watered them good. Many areas that the irrigation was not getting to were watered--but we are hoping for some rain to perk things up.

Castor bean next to lemon grass.

Peggy took a few sprigs of lemon grass to try in a Thai recipe. Several of us decided to find a recipe using lemon grass to try. Most of us have not cooked with it before, and we'd like to experiment. If we find a good easy dish, we can send the recipe along with the lemon grass to the shelter ladies. It smells heavenly.

Celosia (Cockscomb) popping up all over the garden.

We didn't get any planting done today (except for the beets), but lots of weeding, watering and harvesting. Mary Elizabeth fertilized with the comfrey tea and G.A. mixed up a new brew. So that ought to hold us until the next workday. A big thanks to all our workers.

'Til later,

Dianne