Thursday, September 12, 2019

Last Harvest

We were told to clear off our balcony for some building repair work. I think the last time we did this was 10 years ago. Just some minor repairs to bricks and concrete and I honestly don't think there's much to do on our balcony but some other areas around the building do need lots of work. Anyhow, I saw it as motivation to get rid of some junk that's been accumulating out there. Unfortunately it also meant I had to pick the rest of my peppers and tomatoes a little early.


I got quite a pile of green tomatoes and hot peppers and they're all slowing ripening in a large box I keep in the dining room. Last week I picked the last of the cucumbers and took down all the vines. They were pretty much done for the season. I thought I'd have to pickle all the cucumbers but we've been eating a lot of salads lately and it looks like we'll be able to use them all. The tomatoes will get eaten as well. But I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all those hot peppers. I grew way too many of those this year.


This was the first year I focused all of my balcony resources on just a few things that I know I can grow well; tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. That combined with an incredibly favourable growing season led to a fairly impressive harvest. I don't know what I'm going to do next year. I think I need a break but I'll probably feel differently next spring.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Jeff,
I'm hoping that this comment will reach you as I couldn't find another way to contact you. I received three "balcony garden" books for Christmas, one of them yours. To cut a long story short. I started reading "Balcony Gardening by Danny Thomas M.D" followed by your book. What I came to notice was that the first half of the first paragraph in the Introduction is lifted from your book. I honestly couldn't believe this when I was reading it. It's in this books Introduction as well as on the back cover. I obviously understand that this is plagiarised from your book as your book is published first and looks like a "real" book compared to this other utter joke of a book. I'm sorry to be the bearer of this news but I felt I had to try and contact you and let you know, if you didn't already. If you need any more information, images from this other book etc you're more than welcome to contact me on my email address. I look forward to reading your book!
Many thanks
Beatrice

Jeff said...

Thank you for pointing that out. In the Amazon preview of their book I was able to read the first paragraph of the summary on the back of the book and I recognized my writing right away. Pretty much word for word from the first and last paragraphs in the intro of my little book.

Unfortunately that sort of thing happens a lot on Amazon. They make it too easy to put together content and publish as original work. That particular "author" has dozens of books on Amazon. All published around the same time. All in the same style.

And speaking of books, I really should update mine. And I should start posting to this blog again. And plan to grow something this spring.