Summer ain't over yet, after all!

Much to my surprise, our strawberries are still going strong, and I picked a large bowlful of them today, including one absolute whopper. Will have to make sure we eat those tonight, as they go mouldy very quickly (which I found out with the last bowlful I picked).

I also found a couple of small but perfectly formed Green Zebra tomatoes, my first all season, and a good few almost-red Early Girls. I'm taking the tomatoes in before they're red, just in case we get hit by an early frost or a downpour of rain that's going to make them swell up and split.

Oh, and I found a lovely ripe Chocolate Beauty capsicum in the conservatory, so that has been added to today's harvest as well!

Pre-winter planting cleanup

I haven't quite given up on my green tomatoes and peppers yet, but the garden was well overdue a clean-up so we gave it one this weekend.

Out came the gone-to-seed lettuce, the non-performing green beans, and the dead sweetcorn. The purple climbing beans were harvested, as were the butter beans, the carrots, and the potatoes. I haven't weighed any of the weekend's harvest yet but we took in several large tubs of food.

The cucumbers and strawberries are still producing, so they will stay where they are. And, as I said, I'm still holding onto hope for the tomatoes and peppers to turn red.

Freaky carrots

What do you get if you don't thin your carrots properly, and let them grow pressed right up against the side of the raised bed? Freaky carrots, that's what.

Front (for reference, that's a 12-inch ruler in the photo):

Back:

I know it's probably fine, but I really don't want to eat something that looks like this. Would you?