Harvest!

 This has been the year of the yellow squash! The funny thing is that I didn't actually plant any yellow squash. I had gone out to plant the pumpkin starts that Noni gave me and got them done and a couple zucchini seeds planted and then one of the girls needed something and I got distracted and left the packet with two or three yellow squash seeds out in the garden. A storm blew up and by the time I remembered a few days later my seeds were gone. 

A few weeks later I saw there was a squash vine growing in the corn patch. One yellow squash seed apparently blew over there and sprouted and from that we've been eating and giving away yellow squash for months! I have literally given away dozens and dozens of squashes to neighbors, church family, friends...I even took up a bag of over a dozen of them to the girls' school during one of the soccer and volleyball games and left them on the counter. They all got taken, but still after all that this is what we ended up with for our final harvest! 

 

 

A few of them got out of control before they got picked. They went to our friends cows and pigs. :) 

 

 

 Our pumpkins also did really well and I made pumpkin mash for two weeks straight. :P We have more than enough to last us until next year's harvest!

 

 

 

And of course our tomatoes were as prolific as ever. Noni gave us four starts but then we ended up with a good dozen volunteer plants. We had a tomato hedge that was a solid twenty feet by eight feet! It would have been even bigger but I kept cutting it back when it was spilling over into the lawn. Just like with the squash I gave away bags and bags of tomatoes! I did 8 or 9 batches of spaghetti sauce, and a couple batches of pizza sauce. Before the first frost my neighbor came over and we picked four bags for her to take home. Then after a light frost killed the top layer of plants I discovered all these hiding underneath! 

 

 

 

Raspberries were also a big success this year, and carrots did okay, but not great. We didn't lighten up the soil enough so they got fat but not tall. We finally managed to grow corn! And lots of it! Unfortunately it all ended up chewy and not tasting good so we'll have to experiment with another kind next year. Otherwise we had a great garden this year and will enjoy it's produce all year long! We are thankful for a good harvest!