Sprawling Tomatoes and Cucumbers

This is what happens when you're lazy and don't plan ahead. I kept meaning to put up some kind of trellis to hold these tomato and cucumber plants but I never got around to it. I got a few tomatoes and cukes from them. Nothing close to the harvest I could have had, had the plants been propped up off the floor and into the sunlight. 

With the pigeon netting guy coming this week I figure it's time to get rid of these plants and clean things up a bit. So this is the end of tomato and cucumber plants on the balcony this summer. 

Despite my poor effort I did manage to get a few tiny jars of bread and butter pickles made. These are wide mouth 250 ml (half pint) jars. Their size lets me process them in a hot water bath in just about any pot. Sadly I don't think I put enough sugar in these :(

I think the beans are done

My poor bean plants are being overtaken by spider mites. Nothing I can do about it now. I've picked a couple of bowls of beans off the plants over the past two weeks and I think there might be a handful more but that's it. The leaves are yellowing and falling off the plants. They look tired and defeated. But that's ok. I didn't put much effort into them this year. One less thing to water every day.

These were blue lake pole beans. I found the pods didn't grow as long as the Kentucky wonder pole beans I've grown in the past. They tasted fine though. I left some out on the plants a little too long and those had a less desirable flavor to them. 

Beet Pickles

We ate a couple and canned the rest. I just wish I had some larger jars on hand. These little half-pint jars are not big enough for beet pickles.

Beet Harvest

It was time to pull these beets and I was happy with what I got. After trimming and rinsing I was left with 2.5 lbs which I'm ok with considering the container I grew them in has less than three sqft of growing space. Only a couple didn't result in a root worthy of calling a beet. 

I'm not sure exactly what I'll do with them. I was thinking about pickling them and I should be able to get a few half-pint jars from the bunch. But I think instead we'll cook and eat half... less than half, and pickle the rest. And I'll reseed the container to grow more. I'll have to add more compost or just mix in lots of fresh fertilizer. With luck I can have another little harvest like this in October.

My peppers are doing well and that will probably be the next little harvest. But my beans are trying real hard too. I'm finally seeing lots of flowers and a few little beans. I feel sorry that I couldn't give these plants a taller structure to grow on. These blue lake pole beans put up some really tough vines. Most of the cords I tied up to support them untied in the wind a long time ago. No matter. These things aren't going anywhere.