Finally got back to The Farm

Because of working weekends and constant rain during September, I hadn't been to The Farm in four weeks -- since Sept. 3. That weekend, low these many weeks ago, I brought home an OK harvest, including beans:

Okra:

And peppers:

 All in all, though, this summer was total shit down on The Farm. The spring was so rainy and cold I was unable to prepare beds for onions, potatoes, squash, zucchini, and cucumbers, so none of those crops got put in. It didn't help that Farmer Tom was undergoing treatment for skin cancer. (He seems to be fine now.) The tomatoes underwent what can only be described as total crop failure. I think I finally convinced Farmer Tom they need a new location, although that would not have helped this year because the weather was too God-awful to construct new beds in the spring. So there's that.

We had great production on kale and spinach for a while. Constant rain in July really hurt the beans. It didn't help the peppers much, either, but they have come through nicely. Mrs. Wolves went to The Farm last weekend (a week ago) and with Mrs. Farmer Tom harvested a bunch of these wonderful peppers:

These too:

So yesterday -- Sunday -- I finally made it back to The Farm. Farmer Tom had been quite neglectful, I'm afraid. When I was last there, I put in romaine, brussel sprouts and broccoli for fall crops, and there were still beans on the vine. The beans died on the vine, the okra went unpicked, and bugs did a horrible number on the fall crops. The peppers suffered from all the rain, but are still producing. At least the hot peppers are. The bell peppers have almost all rotted on the vine before ripening because of the rain. Sunday, I got some hot peppers, as well as some okra:

As anyone who knows anything about okra knows, if the pods get too bid, they taste like wood and are useless. You have to pick early. Alas, I threw away dozens of okra pods that were just huge. No damn good, in other words. On the other hand, I am drying peppers like a fiend, and I expect to put up a few quarts of hot sauce, as well. All is not lost.