I was in the garden trying to do a little bit of harvesting/weeding/etc. and got overwhelmed with anti-zucchini lust and pulled out two of our four plants.  They were completely taking over the garden, and all summer long I kept surgically removing leaves so that they wouldn’t crowd out my other plants.  Today I was sick of it so into the compost bin they went.  I really hope this will be the last baseball bat-sized zucchini I get this year:

I also picked all the remaining banana peppers so I could make a batch of pickled peppers.  My last cucumber, and a couple tomatoes that are just about ripe.  I don’t know if I’ll get any more tomatoes or not… the plants seem to really be dying off fast now.  I have lots of green fruits on so I’m hopeful for a few more.

My Hidatsa Shield Figure beans are just about ready!  I picked a basketful today, but there are lots more on the plants that aren’t dried out yet.  From what I’ve read, dried beans are ready when the pod is all dried out like this and the beans rattle around in there.

The kids had a blast helping me pull apart the pods and placing the beans in a jar.

Aren’t they neat-looking?  Dried beans are insanely easy.  I have done very little with them since I put them in the ground back in May.  If I had planned a better climbing structure for them (plans are already forming for next year), I wouldn’t have had to touch them.  Plus, these are an unusual heirloom variety that you would never find at a grocery store.

Check out the Seed Savers’ Exchange list of available bean seed packets!  I’m going to have a hard time deciding what to plant next year…