End of the Season Garden Wrap-Up

It's nearly fall, and the garden is winding down. We've still got a ton of tomatoes growing, but the watermelons and cucumbers are finished, and the bean, bell pepper, and swiss chard production has died down. The carrots are nearly ready also—maybe next week.

I haven't been very good about photographing every harvest, and that would get tedious anyway, but just to give an idea of the amount of produce from our little garden, here are some photos of just one harvest:

Habaneros.

Green beans: In total, we've probably gotten about five times this much, even though only five of the seeds we planted sprouted.

Total cucumbers: twenty-seven, and most were quite a good size.

I lost count of the tomatoes. Definitely over seventy-five, and they're still coming. No matter how many we eat and give away, they are constantly covering the windowsills. I'd never grown yellow tomatoes before, but they're delicious, just a tad sweeter than our usual red ones.

Here's the holy family watching over the tomato flock.

And some more in the fridge.

Swiss chard cooks down an incredible amount, so even a giant bunch is really only enough for one meal (for two to three people, in our case). We've harvested three large bunches so far and they're still growing nicely. Hopefully the chard will continue growing into October.

Our favorite method of cooking swiss card: sautéed with just a bit of olive oil, garlic, pepper, and lemon juice.

Here's one small harvest, the day after a big one.

We ended up with six watermelons. By the time I took this picture, though, we'd already eaten two. They're just so damn good. I eat them with salt.

I didn't realize they were baby watermelons (smaller and less oblong) when I planted them, but it's just as well. They're super sweet and juicy, way better than any store-bought watermelon I've had. I'm definitely saving some seeds from these guys to plant in our next garden (in Costa Rica!), I just hope it's legal to cross the boarder with them.

Speaking of Costa Rica, the contents of this blog may see a bit of a shift after MDT and I move there mid-October. Hopefully the sorts of things we'll be doing to save money will be just as applicable Stateside, but we'll have to wait and see.