Grass hoppers making whoopee in our beans.  I guess the bean jungle is a sexy place!

This month has flown by!  Hard to believe fall is almost here. We've been producing about 5-6lbs of tomatoes every few days and 2 lbs of beans.  They are the true rock stars of  the garden right now.  I'm pretty much constantly making tomato sauce (stay tuned for a post about how I make my sauce to come soon), and freezing beans these days.  Last year was our first year producing veggies on a large scale and I so under estimated the time it takes to preserve it all in August, Sept, and October.  This year I'm better prepared.

Our first red bell pepper of the season

Our bell peppers look like they might produce at least a few red peppers.  There are two little ones right now that are starting to turn red.  There are also a few pepper plants that have struggled to or not flowered at all that seem to have hopes of flowering (followed by peppers I hope).  Luckily our farmer's market is brimming with red peppers for cheap.  Thank goodness!

Our zuchinni and pumpkins are showing signs of producing if they can just stay strong enough from the infestations they've had.  I'm crossing my fingers.  I'm really hoping we have pumpkins.  Since I love eating their seeds now and don't want to buy canned pumpkin anymore for fear of BPA (all cans unless otherwise marked have the chemical BPA in them).  We did lose our early squash plant due to my squash surgery.

Our Green Bean Jungle

August Produce Tally

• Turnips (roots only) 5 lbs
• Rutabagas 2 lbs
• Basil
• Beets 9 oz
• Cucumbers 8 lbs 10 oz
• Peas 2 oz
• Tomatoes  42 lbs 2 oz
•  Green Beans 9 lbs 15 oz
• 2 jalapenos

Total for the month: 77 lbs 11 oz or almost 78 lbs
Total for the year so far: 78 lbs + 32 lbs = 110 lbs

Cucumbers, purple basil, and beets last day of August 2012

August 2011 Produce Tally  Compared to This Year  (78 lbs vs 29 lbs)

• We produced almost 19 lbs of tomatoes, so we more than doubled our amount of tomatoes this year from last year.  We did 100 lbs of tomatoes in Sept last year so I'm anticipating 100-200 lbs of tomatoes this year judging from what we have produced so far this August.
•   We had about 1 and a half pounds of beans last year, and this year we had almost 10 lbs.  More than 600% above last year!  Last year we had half pole and half bush beans.  This year we only did pole beans. 
• Last year we had 1 and a half pounds of cucumbers, this year we had almost 9 lbs.  That's a 600% increase.  
• Last year we did have more peas (2.5 lbs vs 2 oz) and broccoli (1.8 lbs vs none) than this year.   The peas could have been due to weather or planting times since they're usually pretty much done before August, and the broccoli was due to poor planning (not enough space or light).
• We had root vegetables (Turnip 5 lbs and Rutabaga 2 lbs) that we did not have last year.  This was our first year planting Rutabaga and last year we harvested our turnip very late.  
• Last year we grew corn, (14 oz) this year we did not because the squirrels ate it all. 

Our cucumbers end of August 2012

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