If we were having coffee, I would welcome you to #weekendcoffeeshare, which is hosted by the lovely Natalie of Natalie the Explorer. Let’s grab a drink and have a chat!

I have mostly been in the garden this week. The weather at this time of the year has been often unpredictable – it can be warm or it can be cold. What I didn’t expect was there would be so many 80+ degrees (27-Celsius) days in October.

It was even forecasted that the temperature would reach a record 90-degrees (32-Celsius) yesterday. I know it never went up that high in my area, maybe it was that high in Salt Lake City – 30 miles south. When it’s all said and done, I would take what I have now temperature-wise than the frigid cold or the insane 110-degrees (43-Celsius).

Nonetheless, I’m pushing my warm weather crops, letting them fruit until the frost comes, even though they are not looking so good. The leaves on the tomato plants have yellow dots on them (fungus?), the leaves on the cucumber plants and squash plants are infected with powdery mildew, which is something that’s never happened to me before. I guess things like these happen when you let your annual plants live past they’re supposed to.

My mom finally let me pull a couple of the sweet potato plants out, revealing my first sweet potato harvest ever. These are Japanese sweet potatoes I purchased from an Asian grocery store in January and started my sweet potato slips. It took about a week for the sweet potatoes to develop roots and it took several more weeks before leaves emerged.

The bigger sweet potatoes on the right are from a single plant while the smaller ones on the right are from about 4 slips that I’ve planted too late. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from these late-planting slips. I simply didn’t want to chuck those slips into the compost, so I planted them.

That’s about 7 pounds (3.18 kg) of sweet potatoes on those racks. I have a feeling I might be swimming in sweet potatoes by the time winter hits because I have 8 more plants that have yet to be harvested and I got almost 5 pounds (2.27 kg) from a single plant, so that should be saying something.

I also harvested a bunch of sweet banana peppers and bell pepper from the front garden. I didn’t want to harvest my sweet banana peppers since they don’t store well but they were being chewed on by grasshoppers.

Those darn grasshoppers!

They’ve been chewing on my beans and peppers, creating holes in them. I don’t know why I have so many darn grasshoppers all of the sudden. They started showing up at the end of July and now they are everywhere!

Anyway, I guess it’s time to make some pickled peppers again. I still have 2 jars of pickles in the fridge that’s yet to be eaten.

I feel like despite the mice, the pests (earwigs), and the weather (wind), this has been a great gardening season. I learned a lot from observation and the harvest will definitely keep me motivated.

I appreciate you stopping by. Until next we chat. 🙂