Harvest

This is the really rewarding part of vegetable gardening. What you can't really see under those beans and cucumbers are three pints of blueberries. We have five bearing blueberry bushes and we've been picking blueberries for a month now. I have ten pounds in the freezer and we've had many desserts and unlimited breakfasts with blueberries. If you don't have blueberries in your garden yet, get some. If you don't have room in the vegetable garden, find a place in the landscape for them. They're very attractive shrubs - lovely in bloom and great fall color.

I put in these ten foot bean poles for kind of a Jack in the Beanstalk effect. I can barely reach the beans at the top even with the ladder. I garden in raised beds and pole beans rule for yield in a small space. The quantity of beans has surpassed my ability to eat them daily, so I've got to find room in the freezer for some.

For pounds per square foot, it's a close race between beans and tomatoes. I had the first tomato sandwich of the season last night. Tomato sandwiches always remind me of grad school. At lunch seminars everyone else had those pathetic sandwiches from the machines while I was slurping on these juicy, fragrant garden fresh tomato sandwiches. Here are the ripening Big Boys for sandwiches and San Marzanos for sauce. We are also growing heritage Brandywine and Oxhearts, Classica paste tomatoes, Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and Sweet Million red cherry tomatoes.