A Harvest That Won't Quit

 Johnny is tired of gathering blackberries and prune plums and freezing them. I'm tired of picking and canning tomatoes, freezing cauliflower and broccoli, harvesting summer and winter squash, etc., etc. I'm sure we'll be glad this winter... but right now, we are tired. 

On Sept. 15, we had a frost that killed the leaves on the tomatoes and squash but did not hurt the fruit. I've been told that squash that ripen after the leaves have been killed will be sweeter. I hope that's true because I harvested more delicata squash today... also melons and tomatoes. Here they are:

 Already stored for winter are the  (white) acorn squash and delicatas from earlier:

The pumpkins are on a bench in the back yard, waiting to be hidden and found by neighbor kids just before Halloween...

I took a photo of tomato plants after the frost. The tomatoes were not bothered at all. They just keep coming...

While I was gathering produce today, Johnny was gathering the last (he hopes) of the prune plums and sorting cider apples from bear apples. Here they are in his EZ Go...

Every few days I haul off all the rejected apples (which are most of them this drought year where the apples have little juice) to the bear pile at the far side of our property. So far, the bears have not come down for them. They have no need until the blackberries in the mountains are gone. I don't want the bears in the orchard, where I walk through twice daily to feed the horses. I have, in years past, met bears in the dark in the orchard on my way back to the house. Now I feed the bears far, far away so they have no reason to raid our orchard.

 

Johnny only saves prunes from the cultivated trees in the orchard. He leaves the little wild ones on the ground for whatever wants them. They have big seeds and the wild things don't seem interested either. There are wild plums on the ground as far as the eye can see here...

It's been a good garden year. Corn and "zucchini boats" are in the freezer, along with beans and peas and cauliflower and broccoli and probably other things I've forgotten.  But we are quite ready for harvest season to be over.

Just have to add the last 3 cauliflower heads picked a few says ago. They are so pretty...