Eggplant.
Without a doubt the most disappointing performer of the season. Here is what the five plants look like today:
Other performers:
lemon cukes: obscenely prolific
squash: huge and abundant fruit
beans: excellent, many pounds frozen for the winter
zucchini: just right
tomatoes: few but tasty, and still growing and ripening
herbs: thyme, mint, sage, dill all excellent
kale: just right, small leaves but relatively tender and readily available
spinach: (long gone) good.
I'm headed for a little vacation. The garden will be in good hands.
Twenty-eight gram tomatoes.
That's just shy of an ounce. So, rounding it to one ounce, how many of them would it take to make a pound? I'll work on this overnight--a version of my insomnia cure. Here they are with some relatives.
Cucumbers.
Today I broke down and penetrated the penitentiary jungle, however briefly. The ground teems with Delicata squashes; Butternut squashes, Lemon Cucumbers, and the mysteriously turned-up squash familiar to me from Sicily hang from the penitentiary chain-link fence or have settled wherever they could. The taste of this Sicilian squash doesn't appeal to me. The tender leaves of its vine are known as tenerumi, a word that suggest the fruit's tender consistency. I left the gigantic one on the vine (it now reaches the ground and turns to one side, slithering on), reserving it for its seeds, but I picked two others. There are quite a few more lurking here and there. The butternuts are huge. The quantity of cucumbers is obscene, like bunnies that can't stop reproducing. I also gleaned some beans from under the gigantic squash leaves and plucked four small artichokes. I should have picked these a few days ago. They are still edible, and though small are good. Tonight I will put all the cucumbers but five in a bag, by the driveway, for passers by to take some if the would like to. The squash will be next to the bag of cukes. I'm curious if they get adopted...
Grapes.
I've been busy harvesting and freezing beans. The grapes (protected by a nylon net) are taking on some color:
