Harvesting in the dark

My hubby and I attended the annual Master Composter/Recycler appreciation event night last night (some of my colleagues were appreciated for 1,000 hours of volunteering!) and when we got home at 8 p.m., we decided that we'd better bring in as much garden produce as we could. The temperature was supposed to dip to 2 degrees Celcius last night, and when it goes below 3, I get nervous. There's frost on the roofs this morning, but I think the garden would have been safe. Oh well.

As it got darker and darker, Lee helped me to pick cukes, pumpkins, the larger tomatoes, one zucchini, and we covered the cherry tomatoes. It was a little crazy working with no harvest moon in sight, with only the back alley light to help us to see. We may have missed a few veggies, but even so, it was kinda fun. After an hour of work, here's what we brought in.

We're wondering if the green pumpkins might be because we planted them next to the cukes. If a bee pollinates cukes and then pumpkins, do we end up with a cucumber/pumpkin cross? A cucumkin? A pumcumber? Hee hee. My neighbour seems to think it will be an odd tasting thing, but I'm not so sure. I guess we'll have to see if the green ones turn orange over the next month. They have a slight orange tinge around the edges.

The top two pails have oregano and basil for the spaghetti sauce I plan to make today with the three gallons of red tomatoes I've been keeping in our freezer. There's enough help in the Clothing Room that I've let them know that I'll work at home this morning, and do one last Terry Fox walk with my youngest daughter at school this afternoon (next year she'll be in Junior High, and parents aren't invited any more, sigh).

Next week I'll probably have enough red tomatoes for another batch of salsa. Maybe there will be one more batch of dill pickles... and some zucchini loaf -- or zucchini brownies? Oh, the possibilities are endless! Especially since there are three more zucchinis on my counter. Do you have any special zucchini recipes to share??

It's been another abundant garden year; thank you, God! There's more work cut out for me, but I don't mind... it will be lovely to taste summer's goodness in mid-winter!