First and third - best in show next year!

I decided, less than two days before the deadline, to submit some of my home preserved foods to our local county fair. I have never done something like this before. I had no clue what the rules were. BUT, I did have a lot of jellies and sauces preserved from this year's harvest so I decided, what the heck, I am going to submit something.

Last day of summer

Today marks the last day of summer. With this end, I harvested the last of the tomatoes and green beans before removing the spent plants. I held on to these sad looking plants because I was just dying to get 13 more pounds of produce out of the garden to bring my grand total to 400 lbs.  I wonder if I succeeded?  Time to weigh the harvest. Drumroll please...

Justice has been served

The proof is below:

Dead hornworm

It looks like the wasp eggs have moved from the dried portion to the more supple portion of the hornworm's body.  Very interesting.

To kill or not to kill, that is the question

I spent some time in the garden today, harvesting a jackpots worth of cherry tomatoes when I came across THIS:

Tomato Hornworm
Tomato Hornworms feed on the leaves, stems, and fruits of the tomato plant, causing extensive crop damage. 

YIKES!  My first Tomato Hornworm!  

I probably would not have seen the Hornworm if it weren't for the white specks of rice-looking projections covering its body. Part of me wanted to use my clippers to slice this pest in half to kill it (sick, I know). But, the other part of me knew to save its life because it was only a matter of time before mother nature took care of this for me (hahaha). You see, these white projections are actually wasp eggs from the braconid wasp, Cotesia congregatus, which parasitize the Hornworm. The wasps will kill the Hornworm and will seek out other Hornworms to parasitize. So this guy gets to live another day while the wasps work their magic.

Daylight is getting shorter and shorter

When I was a kid, I knew summer was over when I could hear the street lights start to buzz after a long night of playing outside. It used to feel like forever before this happened early enough for me to care. As an adult, there are just not enough hours of daylight to garden after Labor Day.

This evening, I spent some time in the garden...ripping out tomato plants, harvesting soybeans, and pulling some of the "big weeds." I certainly wasn't finished with any of my garden chores by the time I looked up and it was pitch black outside. So I carried my harvests to the house only to find out it was 8 pm! Really? I knew I wasn't in the garden long but it didn't seem like it was only 8 pm. Since the amount of daylight is getting shorter, I will have to spend more time on the weekends cleaning and prepping for the fall garden.