Upgrading

Way back, almost 5 years ago though I can't remember exactly when, my father-in-law gave us a large basket. It was such a nice basket and I wasn't quite sure what I'd use it for but I knew we could enjoy it. I jokingly said it would one day be our harvest basket though we had neither garden nor land at the time.

Well, that day has arrived! The small bronze bucket beside it was our old harvest basket. It too was given to us shortly after our marriage... it contained cloth placemats of chickens at the giving! We still use this bucket to gather our eggs, but, in this season of squash galore, it is much too small for our daily veggie harvests. The farmer girl was getting rather tired of emptying it on the table multiple times before the picking was complete!

We've picked our first set of cowpeas from all "volunteer" plants. This is one of farmer girl's favorite tasks- here she is shelling away! She does it so well and I'm happy to let her!

In other news, it looks as though our waltham butternut squash is not a great variety for here. It has died back significantly in the last week. There's a good amount of squash on it and we haven't had the rains and such for bad anthracnose, but something has it yellowing and dying. We'll try something else next time.

As for the Seminole Pumpkins, it looks as though we have ANOTHER case of cross pollinization. We have 2 fruit forming and they are rather long and thin for a pumpkin! Very disappointing because seminoles are a great pumpkin here and we were really looking forward to yummy pumpkin soup this summer!

Have picked a couple okra, lots of leaves off the amaranth, a single cucumber and a few beans. The watermelons are finally flowering and the peppers and tomatoes are setting small amounts of fruit. Pickleworm is staying in check with Sevin applied every 10-12 days. Can't wait for the canteloup to ripen- it's loaded with fruit now but nothing ripening any too fast!