More harvest stuff - shell beans, tomatoes and squash

Shell Beans

I planted 19 45-foot rows of shell beans this year.  The patch was originally unprotected (no fences).  Deer eventually found it and ate the leaves off most of the plants!  I eventually did place a baited electric fence around the patch that did stop the deer (either tha or they found better things to eat!), but the damage was done. Many of the beans did not fill out - they didn't mature.   Anyway, we started picking the beans the last weekend of August - we got about 1 bushel of the Accelerate beans from 4 rows.  This weekend I was by myself but able to dedicate most of my time to picking so I got another bushel and a half of the accelerate variety.

The rest of the "Accelerate" bean harvest

I started in on the "velour" variety but found some issues.  The Velour bean is much smaller and evidently matured earlier.  Also, the weeds in the velour side of the patch were much more prevalent so picking was very difficult!  I essentially was pulling EVERYTHING!  Except for some volunteer locust trees which I think I will try to transplant next spring.  I got only a tiny amount of beans, shown below.  I still have most of the velour section of the patch to pick.  I hope the weather doesn't turn rainy next weekend!

"velour" bean harvest to date.

Elderberries and crab-apples

I found more then a few elderberries left on the bushes - at least enough that I didnt feel good leaving them there!  So I picked these last elderberries:

There is about a half-gallon of them after picking off the stems.  Very ripe!

I mowed what was tall in the orchard - there is a draught so not all the grass needed mowing.  AS I did I noticed some crab-apples were ready to pick - so I grabbed them.  Not sure what I will do with these though.

Crab-apples - this is whole harvest!  Of course, these came off a tree that I thought would have died this year!  

Tomatoes and squash

I harvest the volunteer tomatoes in the front patch as well as the planted tomatoes in the sweet-potato patch.  I got about 35lbs!  We are going to be drying some of these, but I don't think we can dry them all before they go bad.

From the planted tomatoes

From the volunteer tomato plants in the front patch.  The squash are from the  squash plants - go figure!  The last of the corn harvest is in there too - not sure if it was worth it though.

I also harvested the zucchini and even one of the butternut squash from the far patch!  There are lots of butternut squash getting close.  IDK what I will do with all of these!  I hope they keep well!

Strawberries keep coming!

Decent strawberry harvest considering the time of the year and the drought conditions!  I am definitely going to have to buy more everbearing strawberries!