That’s truly amazing to me! Bravo!
That’s so impressive! They’re $7 each here in the store.
We used to have a little laying flock. The barred rock hen had a HUGE crush on my husband. She’d follow him around muttering, and if he ignored her for a long time she’d nail him on the back of the leg with her beak. He was known to say “You don’t want to turn your back on a chicken.” She would ride on your shoulder.
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@MunchkinRedux , how do you know when a cucumber plant is spent?
Then
Now
Newest peppers setting fruit
Beans
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When the plant is dead - withered and brown - and the last few cukes clinging to life on it are small, misshapen and malformed. Lol. If DH had his way, he declare them “done” long before i do. I cling to them until the bitter end.
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Ahhh! Thank you! I was wondering if that was a sign! I was thinking it might have something to do with pollination. A lot fewer bees right now, and there are still flowers.
You know, our entire town didn’t get blackberries this year. They grow like weeds, but there was never harvestable fruit this year in any quantity. Just a lot of small, underripe berries, everywhere we looked. I’m wondering if it wasn’t a pollination issue. The bees in our yard came very late this year. 
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I live in NW Montana and this was the weirdest gardening session ever. Every year has been different, but this one really flummoxed me.
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After a year of no apples (poor pollination in 2022 township-wide), I was greedy and left too many apples on our trees this year. Fortunately, we’ve had no major windstorms thus far, and the windfall has been minimal. We had one broken branch on one of the Honeycrisp trees, but we patched it back up and it looks like it will graft itself back on.
Shown here is a partial pick of Greensleeves (left), which has the quintessential flavor of “green apple”. If you’ve ever eaten a Jolly Rancher green apple candy, this is exactly what these taste like, albeit not as sweet.
Also shown is our hands-down favorite – the Honeycrisp. I never dreamed we could grow apples this big and in such fine shape. They are a terrific baking apple, as well as for eating out of hand.
FYI these all are harvested from micro-dwarf trees (M27 rootstock), none of which are over 6’ tall. Makes for easy pruning, thinning, and pest control. The rest of the trees on our property are dwarf (up to 15-16’). We let those go kinda wild, because they’re too big to micro-manage. The super dwarves (we have six of them), get special love and attention.
If you look closely, under my elbow is The Supervisor.
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Those look DELICIOUS.
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Thank you! I see a 
in my future.
Kindness!
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Lucky stylist!
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Pulled up my san marzano tomato plant today as it was pretty much done. I also pruned the Undesired heirloom cherry tomato plant waaaay back, but I couldn’t remove it totally because it’s intertwined with my beloved black cherry plant. Still getting some peppers, and the other tomato plant is still producing as well, although the fruits are smaller and not as tasty.
One of the pint jars of crushed tomatoes I canned the other day didn’t seal, so i fridged it. Tonight I scooped some out and heated it through to have it as ersatz stewed tomatoes with my supper. Gosh darn those San marzanos are tasty, even with literally nothing but salt and pepper.
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This season seems to be winding down early at chez small h. The tomatoes got blight, and one died because of overzealous watering by my neighbor. They’re still producing, but very slowly. Aphids are impeding the lettuce. I got three peppers, which is actually a good harvest for me! The kale and chard aren’t as robust as in years past. But the sorrel, parsley and sage are in very good shape. Kind of a C+ year.
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Winding down here, also. The rain started today and will stick around for the forseeable future. We picked all the tomatoes yesterday - red and green - and brought them indoors.
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I may just be deluding myself, but I am hoping for another small round of tomatoes; it is crazy hot in August, and things get sort of dormant, then wake up again in September.
Usually my best season for ripe peppers.
About to start a the fall/ winter, but first New Orleans!
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It’s been raining for 30 hours or so. I did my best to harvest any tomato that had broken color before the rain started, but I can’t imagine that any of the green ones I left on the vine will do anything other than split irretrievably after all this.
It’s been such crappy weather I haven’t even ventured out to survey the damage.
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That’s possible. Setting up some Mason Bee “apartments” might help.
Another possibility is infection with viruses. There are numerous cane-fruit viruses. Some cause lack of fruiting, others cause “crumble berry”. Viruses can spread very quickly, via flying insects, leafhoppers and thrips. It would be unusual for a virus to affect an entire town in one season.
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