this years garden's yields...?

[kenya]

Wow you do have tons of monarch butterflys, you and the chickens will have tons of sunflower seeds as well. That's if you share them with the chickens.

[Jaye]

I had one lonely sunflower, just ready to bloom, get snapped at the base of it's stem by some pretty heavy winds about a week ago. It broke my heart. It was right outside one of my kitchen windows. I got to see it's progress every morning. I stuck the broken off base in a bucket of rainwater and kept it topped up. Just because I hoped it would re-root. Have I mentioned that relatively speaking I'm a gardening newbie (aka don't know much yet)? Anyway, the main bud has flowered! And there are several others that look like they're almost there. The leaves are still droopy, but not dead, and somehow this sunflower is surviving. It's still my morning smile.

[Killerbunny]

SO I don't like squash generally and have been in search of the perfect one since I tasted a very good one a few years back. I have found one that is as advertised! I started late but planted KABOCHA squash. I just harvested my first and you may need a cleaver to chop it up. It is smaller that many and I roasted some. It is very dry and nutty, like chestnuts. It would make a good puree or soup. It cooked very fast roasting it so would make nice chip snacks. I only have a couple of them like due to weather but this one I'll do next year.

[windwalkingwolf]

Addendum to my post on page one: My bush beans over-produced as usual again this year, and keep going as long as I keep pruning off leaves that want to turn brown. I got another good picking today, and more on the way if frost holds off for 3 or 4 days. Also another good picking of broccoli 'side-sprouts', and now cauliflower and red cabbage are really going gangbusters.
The first planting of peas did well, even though I didn't set them out until the first of June, but second planting (third week of August) seems stunted and hasn't started to even flower yet.
My cherry toms have perked up again in the past week so now I'm actually getting a lot, maybe even enough to consider starting a pot of sauce/paste! Quite a bit different from last year, when I had enough toms to make almost 24 litres of sauce.
Zucchini plants are full of borers now, so I'll be pulling them shortly. I've also seen evidence of them in one pumpkin and one watermelon plant now. Whoever said Squash Vine Borer was only a May/June problem clearly never lived in Ontario.
Late-planted Sunflowers are starting to randomly break/fall over. Looks like I've got cutworms, millipedes and stinkbugs running rampant in that section of the garden.
I didn't get as many ground cherry or tomatillo volunteers this year as I expected, so I'm glad that I planted a couple of each at least. I wanted to try to make some ground cherry wine this year, but with only three plants, the berries don't even make it to the house...I just eat them all :) Tomatillos same thing. I eat them like strawberries and wish I had planted more. I also planted 4 Cape Gooseberry and 4 huckleberry plants this year, but those have just recently flowered and aren't even close to mature. I'm cheering them on...if I thought it would help, I'd be out there jumping around with pom-poms, or lighting candles and setting magic spells.
Cukes and watermelons wilted pretty much overnight a couple of days ago. We had a couple nights of low temps (one night went down to 4 degrees C here) so the whole garden is at the mercy of the weather/changing of seasons now.

[WLLady]

yeah my cucumbers bit the dust about a week ago when we hit 5C. that's okay. i'm done with cucumbers LOL. a huge crop of those, we were peeling and slicing them for vegetables at dinner, making cucumber salad (just cucumber and a green pepper with italian dressing) almost every night all august.
my surviving pumpkin got tunnelled by some rodent or another. argh! just WHAT ARE the cats doing??!
have to pick the butternuts and warted hubbards and fortnas soon. like tonight. don't want to lose them to the rodents too. and i just put my guineas out so they can go root through the garden. i guess i better get the carrots out too. looks to be a bumper crop of brussel sprouts too. not ready till after frost though. the rest is pretty much done....tomatoes all have blossom end rot going on. too cool now....peppers still going strong. stuffed peppers on the menu tonight again.
i have one volunteer giant russian sunflower. it grew about 15 heads this year, and 1 giant head about 12 inches across. all the little ones are full of seeds and being raided by those yellow birds with black wings (finches?) that sunflower is about 12 feet tall, and will be cut to kindling when totally dry. it's looking pretty droopy and brown around the edges already.....and the squash vine borer was nuts this year! i just bury the stems on my squash routinely now from june through sept....they seem to root where they're buried and stay alive longer. And thank goodness the zucchini got too cold and quit too....phew. made it through another zucchini season. LOL

[Killerbunny]

American Goldfinch! Delightful little birds.

[labradors]

What is all this talk of Brussells Sprouts? I thought they were a cold weather crop. When did you start them?

[WLLady]

they've been in the garden growing away since may.....they're about 3 feet tall and the sprouts are just filling in now. they are 100-120 days maturity, so 4 months roughly. they do most of their growing in september for me i find. but if i don't get them into the garden and then religiously sprayed with BTK they do horribly. the cabbage loopers LOVE them.....

[labradors]

Thanks for explaining WLLady. They take up a lot of real estate don't they? Maybe I could grow some under Reemay to keep the darned caterpillars off them. Hmmmm.

[Ontario Chick]

My garlic supply for the year, I now have it down to science, doz each for the kids 140 cloves for planting and rest lasts as a year until next harvest.