Carrots and bean plants and leeks! Oh MY!

Here is the sweet potato bed (with leeks on one side and the volunteer beans in the back).  Haven't yet dug any of the White Triumph sweets yet--probably not til a hard frost is predicted.  I want to give them every day possible to grow larger. 
Leeks fight with the sweet potatoes for space! 




Here are some of the blue shackamaxon beans that volunteered in my foursquare (from last year).  You can see in the pod the beans beginning to gain their blue color; the ones on the table show their lovely characteristic sapphire blue.  Eventually, they will dry black.  I got about 7 lbs of fresh green beans so far from the plant, and many more remain on there now, making the dried blue beans for the winter.   I made a second planting, too, elsewhere in the garden, following my pea harvest.   
Some of the harvest from my second foursquare.  Notice the very hilarious St. Valery carrots!  I've seen forked carrots before , but this is ridiculous!  Several that I've pulled have had 3, 4, and even 5 roots.  We had the carrots last night grated with a vinaigrette of lemon juice, wine vinegar, mint, olive oil, salt & pepper.  

Here is the state of the carrot/beet bed in mid-September.  I've noticed that the St. Valery carrots have enormous top growth.  The gorgeous beets continue to have lovely tops but the beets themselves remain rather small.  

Shackamaxons reach to the top of the porch!  And a closer look at the contents of the foursquare:   

Bull's Blood beets, with their gorgeous tops. 

From Four-Sqaure Gardener Lise

Lise asked me to post this for her. Enjoy! -Meg

Hello fellow 4 Square Society members,
I want to tell you about a sweet experience the other night. I was watering in back of my 1924 bungalow on A2's Southwest side when I heard some little voices coming from out front.
"What happened to the lettuces?" said a little voice.
I put down the hose and went around to catch a glimpse of the two teensy children and their parents examining my 3x8' raised bed. We built it along the sidewalk from old lumber we found behind the house along the sidewalk.

"My son asks every day to go see the lettuce," said his mother almost apologetically. Suddenly I remembered my own mother and how she would share the delight of any small child by blowing feathery seeds off dandelion heads or playing "he loves me he loves me not..." I was so excited to share my little garden! (I started it after reading about the 4 Square Society!) "Here, these are carrots. Let's see if they are ready..." I tugged at the greens and up came a perfect three inch carrot. I gave them each one (the first I had tried harvesting.) The kids were thrilled, holding them out like candles at Christmas. And so was their Mom. My garden was her destination, a stopping point on her daily walk around the neighborhood. Thanks Growing Hope!

Lise