Catching up--the cucumbers and beans

This was late in the evening, so the lighting wasn't great. It was just such a pretty collection of colors. I love the patty pan squash, they are so tasty and so pretty. I stuffed the squash blossoms with basil, garlic and ricotta cheese and battered them with an eggy batter and fried them.

This was our first beans, tomatillos and eggplant.

Do you see how many beans we got?? They were so pretty. One thing I didn't realize was that Tanya's Pink Pod and Red Swan beans are the same color. I was thinking of the Borlotti beans I grew last year when I ordered them. In the distance are the Suyo long cucumbers. They have such an interesting shape.

I wish I had gotten more pictures of the watermelons. We are still getting watermelons off the vines, but they are declining. I grew three different kinds this year: Yellow Moon and Stars (has yellow flesh), Strawberry (red inside--it's a Florida variety), and White Wonder, which has been my favorite. It has very crisp, white flesh inside and is really lovely. The rind is very thin, which must be why you never see any white watermelons in the stores. I made a beautiful watermelon salad with all three colors, and we are currently making three-toned watermelon Popsicles in the freezer!

I don't have any photos, but we also got a bunch of Golden Jenny melons, which look like little cantaloupes. They are orange inside, and very fragrant and sweet. We also got a bunch of Silverline melons, which are so pretty and silver-striped with sweet, white flesh. The Ice Cream or Green Machine melons were my favorite. They are greenish yellow on the outside when ripe, and not very fragrant, so it was hard for me to tell if they were ready or not. But the inside is sweet, green and crispy and strangely like the texture of ice cream. The Collective Farm Woman melons from Baker's Creek just got ripe. We've gotten only three so far. They are supposed to be an early melon, but have been the next to last to get ripe. They're from the Ukraine, I think, so maybe Florida just doesn't agree with them or something. They were very tasty. They looked like any old cantaloupe from the store, but were green and orange inside and very good, although the sweet part was mostly in the center. There are still the Delice De La Table melons, one of which rotted, tragically. I need to find a better way to keep the weeds down so I can actually find the melons. I'm thinking weed guard paper next year.

I've just been marveling about how amazing it is to be able to pick out unusual seeds from all over the world with varieties I had never seen or heard of and to grow them and get to taste them. I've been so enjoying my garden, almost to the point of obsession. When people ask about how my garden is going, I just can't help going on and on about it, and then I realize I'm boring everyone and manage to come to a stopping place.