I waded into the pumpkin patch and found these guys ready to pose for the camera.

By wading, I mean battling through tall weeds, looking at a field of still-green vines, and plottng how to step through without destroying too many vines.

The nexus of pumpkin varieties. This is the end of the winter luxury pumpkin, meeting up with a French heirloom Rouge Vif d’Etampes, with a jack-o-lantern type sneaking in on the right.

This Rouge Vif d’Etampes surprised me. I am fond of growing heirlooms and have learned that they don’t always produce well, or uniformly, or timely, or in enough quantities. This is a deep red, gorgeous, cheese-wheel shaped squash, that announces its presence in the field.

Another surprising hit, the miniature white pumpkin. I’ve tried several times with larger white varieties to no avail. But these little guys seem have prospered. We cut them, and store them out of the sun so they don’t get a sunburn and turn yellow. Usually pumpkins sit in the sun to cure, which forms a hard shell, and allows it to keep for a long time. Out of the sun, it needs to stay at 85 degrees with good air circulation.

The delicata squash, still blooming and vining.

Winter luxury pumpkins are coming soon! Beautiful netted skin. Dry flesh, not stringy. This makes a wonderful pumpkin pie, the first type that got me cooking pumpkins and the only type I will use.

New crop of flowering broccoli rabe. They struggled through August heat and drought, but were helped by some weeds providing shade and moisture in the roots. While I wouldn’t say hand-weeding is efficient, the fall season does make the work less tedious as weeds don’t crop up week after week with the same tenacity. I