Tragedy in the Blackberrys

Sugi, will you put some berries in my basket?

Blackberry picking is coming to an end. We picked 8 gallons of blackberries this year (not including the ones we ate or the dogs & child stole from our baskets) to make lots of blackberry brandy. Nomnoms! We picked on the road, on the driveway and even went to the back 40. That was our last berry picking sojourn and the scene of Deara's horrible tragedy.

Not a future doctor

Nobody makes me bleed my own blood

These pictures were taken under duress. The more blood she saw the more hysterical she got. We made it back to the house and administered the life saving band-aid. I don't even know how she got stuck, it's not like she actually picks any berries. It's so much easier to take some out of our baskets. The dogs liked eating blackberries too. Along with stealing from us they did pick their own, sometimes.

Picking necessities (suit of armor not included)

Lexie eating berries

Homer, gingerly extracting himself from the meanest parts of the plant

Nice plummers crack!  Face hidden = eating berries

It's feeling and acting like Fall around here. Leaves are falling off the maples, it was 39* when I got up at 6:30 this AM, rain probably coming tomorrow. My garden was late this year. There are bunches of green tomatoes but I have a recipe for that. The zucchini hasn't given up yet and the buttercup squash is all over the place. I had mystery plants that I thought were cantaloupe, (way too long a story) have turned out to be watermelon...check it out:

my watermelon

Well, if you can't laugh at your own gardening....






I think it's funny...






It's my Barbie watermelon:

Isn't it adorable?

Kyle says it's even smaller in person...thanks Kyle. However, all the other veggies did just fine. There were peas earlier in the season. Like I said, the zucchini and  squash is all over the place. The tomatoes are lovely yet tasty, a hard combination to achieve sometimes. Store tomatoes are usually lovely but never have the taste of a ripened-on-the-vine tomato. My tomatoes always taste vine ripened but usually have lots of uglies. Not this year!

Hurry, it's September

Fair worthy

Buttercup squash

Peppers love strawberries

Most people don't think about their plants being racists, but they are. Some plants just don't like other plants. I found this out by planting tomatoes next to gourds one year. They hated each other so much that the plants nearest each other actually died. I still didn't know wtf until I found a book about companion planting. So now when I notice a couple of plants not playing well together, they get separated, lest all should perish. All the varieties of peppers I planted this year really like the company of the strawberries. It was a very good pepper & strawberry year:

Bells

Anaheims

                                   Sorry no pictures of strawberries. We ate
                                                      all of them.

As the garden of 2010 comes to an end, I will have lots of frozen and canned veggies/fruit to get us through the winter. Noms!