Harvesting

As you can see there are 11 orange pumpkins of various sizes (not counting the one that I carved), one that almost ripened that is a kind of nice mottled green and yellow, and a few shiny round green gourds.

Given how many issues there were with planting time and germination, it is kind of miraculous. 

The vines and the nightshade filled up the yard debris bin, so currently the sunflower stalks are still  standing, but all of the heads are down on the ground. Frankly, I had been hoping to see more small creatures eating the seeds, but there is still time. Come on, critters!

It was (for me) kind of a miraculous thing to pick a seed out of something I grew, and be like, "That's a sunflower seed, just like the one I planted a few months ago."

I don't really have any plans for eating them myself, but I did save a few, to see how planting them works. I saved some from a regular head, the big head on the mutant sunflower, and some little heads off of the mutant sunflower. I labeled them neatly in envelopes and meant to take a picture, but it appears that Lilly had some feelings about how long I had been outside.

Speaking of little critters and what they eat.

Vicious.

One reason I waited so long to pull up the nightshade was that - besides being pretty - I read that it composts well, and I kind of wanted to compost it here. I am not ready to sort out composting yet.

I still need to take down the sunflower stalks and the tomato plants in the back. The potatoes don't appear to be done yet. Being so deep underground, I guess the frost is less of an issue. 

Otherwise, everything is figuring out next year, and I am having a hard time looking ahead. 

I hope things are clearer tomorrow.