The last of the garden

Fall has arrived with shorter days and cooler nights.  We probably have a couple more weeks before the first hard frost, but the garden is starting to slow down now. We have not had to water the plants at all in September due to all the rainy weather this month. Squash, tomatoes, peppers, sugar snap peas, and some sweet potatoes are still on the way. Scott even made a friend at one of the neighboring garden plots who has been sharing hot peppers with us.  This is particularly exciting because we can make homemade guacamole (gracias, Lupita, for teaching me!) using all community garden ingredients, except for the avocado!

We harvested 2 medium-sized pumpkins during the last week of September, and actually discovered that we also have two different types of gourds! They must have been mixed in the seed pack with the pumpkins and didn't produce until later so we didn't realize they were there. Not the biggest or the most perfect pumpkins I have ever seen, but we grew them ourselves!

Pumpkin in progress....to fall decor!

Our eggplant did not do very well overall, but it did produce a single eggplant which made for a delicious eggplant parmesan dinner!

 From garden to table (eggplant parmesan)

Working on the garden made for a worthwhile summer project- there were nights when we didn't feel like going over to water and weed, but it has been nice to have garden time outside and fresh produce that we grew ourselves.  We often joke that this eggplant (or insert vegetable here) REALLY cost about $300 with the time investment on top of the start up cost of the garden.  But, all jokes aside, we have enjoyed (and are still enjoying) the fruits (or vegetables) of our labor.