The cucumbers were plentiful last week with many more on the way. Most of the ‘Chelsea Prize’ English cucumbers are 12-15 inches long with few seeds, thin skin and delicious, crisp flesh. My neighbors happily receive these garden gifts. I pulled out my cucumber file of recipes and made several new and standby sides with the cukes.

The ‘San Marzano’ tomatoes are mostly free of blossom-end rot now and only a few remain on the bush as tomato season winds down. Most of them are cooked for puree and the freezer. Two sorry tomato bushes went to the green bin last week and the remaining two have few leaves remaining though the cherry tomatoes and ‘San Marzanos’ linger.

The cherry tomatoes are unremarkable so I roast most of them with olive oil and garlic and stow in the freezer for pasta meals.

Lucy inspects a day’s harvest. The two zucchini plants yield about three fruit daily which delights neighbors without a garden. More attention to the vines gives me straighter cucumbers.

She also helps with the misshapen and over-sized green beans. When I go twice daily to pick she comes and sits beside me requesting her portion.

But there are plenty of the ‘Provider’ bush beans to share.

The arugula growing in a container in dappled shade allows a nice shearing once or twice a week. The fall garden will have it planted in the raised beds.

The cosmos bloom with heady abundance as long as I gather them for bouquets. They are my summer flower garden delight.

See what other garden bloggers harvested from their gardens last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.