Fall Garden Starting/ Summer Update

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.