Crops, crops everywhere

Many wonderful crops are coming out of the Danger Zone lately. Here is our August Danger Zone update:

All of the tomatoes are beginning to ripen, and are extremely good-tasting. We are finding our larger tomatoes are splitting a bit on top (due to all of the rain lately), but this has not affected their flavor so far.

One of our tomatoes fell off the plant before it was ripened, and so David made fried green tomato slices. This is one of my favorite appetizers, and these did not disappoint. They were delicious! I am not-so-secretly hoping more tomatoes make their way off the plant a little early...

Linus the pumpkin has grown considerably since my last update and looks promising to be ready in time to be our Great Pumpkin on Halloween night this year. Recently another pumpkin has started to grow, and I have (appropriately) named it Sally.

Our Chinese eggplant plant is determined to grow, despite the continuous attacks from the little black beetle bugs. So far we have two little eggplants coming in.

We made pickles two nights ago with our first round of pickling cucumbers, and we will make more tonight. Our regular cucumbers have also been doing well too; I like to eat slices of them with hummus.

We have real ears of corn now, but it is hard for us to tell whether or not they are ready to be picked yet. David read that the corn is ripe two weeks after the silk forms, but our ears just don't look large enough to be ready. I think tonight or next week we will have to pick one and test it out.

Despite their growing leafy tops, our carrots are still not ready yet. We ate this one anyway (since we already picked it), and I can confirm that I still like eating these carrots.

After a slight delay from our first zucchini, we have two more growing in. It is amazing how well these zucchini plants have recovered since their stems were split!

In less interesting news, our sunflowers are growing taller by the second it seems (and some have surpassed me at 5 ft. 8 in.), but still no flowers yet. Also, our pepper plants are doing very well, but have not quite turned from green to red/purple.

It has become very fun to go to our "farm" lately because we get to take yummy vegetables home with us almost every time we visit. Currently, our fridge is packed with swiss chard, lettuce, cucumbers, green beans and tomatoes. (Perhaps it really is time to throw that salad party after all...)