Harvesting

Chris and I harvested a whole ton of the cherry and grape tomatoes yesterday.

We also harvested a few of the ever-ripening serrano chiles and jalapeño peppers. We grew these two varieties last year and the plants lasted well into the fall and winter and continued producing until first freeze.



I couldn't possibly eat all of these tomatoes, so we decided to sun dry them.

We cut them in half, put them on a baking cooling rack, and sprinkled them with sea salt. We then stuck bent straws through the spaces, which holds cheese cloth over the tomatoes (without touching) so bugs can't get to them. We tucked the cheese cloth into a baking sheet that fits perfectly under the cooling rack. We figure it should take about 3-5 days because of the heat we're having, and then we'll freeze them!

When we were harvesting tomatoes, we saw that the watermelon that was perched on the fence had cracked all the way through, so Chris decided to harvest 2 watermelons before we realized the split one wasn't fully ripe. So after waiting all this time, we harvested two *almost* ripe watermelons. Dang. Even the dog didn't eat it. Chris said it tasted like, imagine this, an underripe watermelon. There's still one on the vine, so we'll give it another week or so and it should be perfect.

Our pumpkins never fruited and the stems and leaves are yellowing, so I think we're going to call that experiment done and pull them out. The two remaining broccoli plants look healthy, but the lean and fall in the slightest breeze. Same destiny for them.

Garden is winding down, and I'm looking forward to cleaning up and starting cool season crops!