This is one of 4 Cinderella pumpkins growing in the hugelkultur bed. It's not ripe yet; it will turn bright reddish orange when it is ripe. They are huge and beautiful.
Here is a view of the hugelkultur bed. In the foreground is the extra mound, and you can see all the vines - those are sweet potatoes. The sunflower presides over them. Behind is the hugelkultur, with the Cinderella pumpkins along the right side. On top are more sunflowers, not yet blooming, sunberries, a couple of tomato plants, arugula that has gone to seed, several calypso bean plants, candy onions, lettuce gone to seed, and sugar baby watermelons.
These are calypso beans. They are really delicious; they taste a lot like kidney beans. I often put them in soups.
Malachi's banana tree is growing nicely.
And here is the deck garden. Lydia said, "It was a forest, and now it's bare! What happened?" What happened is that I cleared it out/harvested, and now I've started replanting fall crops. In the foreground I planted radishes, spinach, and broccoli seeds. The arugula, cilantro, and dill reseeded, and now there are tiny seedlings that aren't visible in the picture but are located just beyond the area I planted. In the middle there is a small cantaloupe plant that is a quick-maturing type. I hope to get cantaloupe from it before frost. There are some cabbages at the back, and kale. I plan on replanting that area soon as well. A few cherry tomato plants have volunteered along the house to the right.
Here is a glimpse of the tomatoes. They are doing so well; I'm harvesting around a dozen a day of these types: Black Vernissage, Black Krim, Golden Jubilee, Woodle Orange, and St. Pierre. All are delicious. I've been canning and freezing quite a bit.
I didn't take photos of the butternut squash, but it is doing fabulous. I also have tomatillos, some cucumbers (not tons), golden crescent beans, sunberries, herbs, cantaloupes, blue pumpkins, etc. I have a few pepper plants, too, which are getting closer to harvest time. I replanted carrots in the square foot gardens and in some pots, along with more radishes. Lydia and Gyunay planted pea pods out front.
Overall, the summer garden has done very well, and for once I actually have focused on planting a fall garden, so we may continue to have harvests of various things for at least a couple more months.
The Promise of Dawn, by Lauraine Snelling, is true historical fiction. She places the reader squarely in the life of a family struggling to make it as immigrants in America at the turn of the last century. Signe, her husband, Rune, and their three sons arrive in Minnesota to live with distant relatives who are harsh people. The amount of work they had to do makes me feel very lazy! This story illustrates the hardships, and also the work ethic, of pioneers. I think people who enjoyed Laura Ingalls Wilder books as children would feel connected to the characters and lifestyle in this grown-up story. This story delves deeply into how attitude can make such a difference in any situation. There are strong elements of forgiveness and charity throughout the book. The very beginning of the story was a bit hard to get into, especially since it was first told from the viewpoint of Rune's mom, but Signe is the main character, so when it switched to more about her, it was easy to get into it. Also, I was very unfamiliar with the Norwegian names and foods, so I had to get my head around some of those as well. I was familiar with steerage passage on steamships around this time, and I was pleased with the author's accurate and engaging description of their passage over the ocean.
Fault Lines by Thomas Locke is definitely a suspenseful book. The action starts right away and rarely lets up. It is a bit hard to follow in spots, because there are multiple characters at play, and not all are as well-developed to make their personalities and roles easily apparent. I really enjoyed the characters of Charlie Hazard, Julio, and Alessandro. The book does have a good resolution, but it is apparent that the end of the book is not the end of the story. I enjoyed all of the action and suspense in this book, but I struggled a bit with some of the elements in the story line not quite meshing, or being well explored. Perhaps some of these elements are better defined in the rest of the trilogy. I'm not being too specific here, because I don't want to spoil anything for readers.
