The haul so far: Meager at best

As we sense the nights cooling - even here in steamy Kansas - I begin to wonder if I'll end up with anything significant from the garden. It's been a weird year. Between hailstorms, tornadoes, and torrential rain, watering has rarely been necessary, but the deluges haven't helped as much as they've hurt, perhaps.

Some things have grown well and produced aplenty, e.g.- basil, thyme, sunflowers, and the ever-loving arugula monster twins. Other crops have been abysmal failures, and I don't have good answers since I've had good luck with the same seed or variety in previous years. Here's a list of the failures, with some speculation on what went wrong:

• Tomatoes: haven't harvested one yet; late planting, weak seedlings
• Eggplant: only two so far; late planting
• Corn: tough; who knows?
• Blauhilde beans: got about two pounds; planted way too many in the space
• Armenian cucumbers: none yet; lots of male flowers, very few females
• Amish gourds: ditto

I'd be curious if anyone has had similar experiences in this region, or might have an inkling about what might be wrong.

Not all is lost, the eggplant are producing beautiful fruit, and there are many in the works. Wish the tomato were mine. It's just a prop, grown by our CSA farmer, who thankfully is a more diligent gardener than I.

Oh, and this manly shot is for fellow Gardenaut Joshua. He was right. (See the comments to this post.) If you're stuck with excess arugula, stick it in a slice of pizza and enjoy. It's delicious.

Nice surprises

Well, I promised to post on everything I was growing this year, even those I'm growing unintentionally:

These guys showed up after a day of rain last week, but they haven't gone away. I wanted to try sauteeing them in butter, but Rob said that was too dangerous a gamble.

Surprise Number Two: Remember that vine?

We now have 8 or 10 fist-sized fruits and another dozen or two blossoms. Now I'm going to have to find out how to dry gourds. Everyone's getting bird feeders for Christmas!

The last small miracle was found under the canopy of our vociferous irises and expansive hydrangea:

Yes, our pennyroyal is alive, despite all evidence to the contrary. It looks like I'll have to move it again. It spreads alarmingly fast when it has light and lots of sun, and the leaves smell heavenly - a mix of lemon and mint.

My tomatoes are producing well, and shockingly, the squirrels have left them alone, except for the rotting ones that we pick and leave in the yard for them as a sort of peace offering/distraction. the I have come to realize that I really should have staked them earlier and more sturdily, but at least we're getting fruit, and lots of it.

I'm curious about the dry, black spots that have formed at the bottom of most of the paste-variety tomatoes (most clearly seen on the orange one). Anyone know how or why this happens?

We had a couple of loads of yellow wax beans, but they appear to have stopped producing. And my lettuces are officially flowering. I'm trying to save seeds, plus keep the soil healthy. We'll see how successful that is!

I really am happy with this experiment. So what if everything doesn't work out? The surprises more than make up for it.