As expected, September was the month for picking acorn and butternut squash. I am writing this article Sept. 23, and so far, we have picked more than 250 pounds of this winter squash, which has contributed to our year-to-date harvest total of 1,382 pounds.

We also grew a couple of unique winter squash that have Hannah from The Seed Farm and Johnny’s Seeds completely confused. These squashes look like extremely large acorn squash with a green stem, but they are tan instead of green. We were advised by Johnny’s Seeds to throw this squash away because it is an unknown variety and may not be safe to eat. Yikes!

While the winter squash bed has mostly been emptied, there are still several acorns and butternuts still ripening on the vine. The picked acorns were given out at the September Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative food distributions, while the butternuts are stored in the pantry on a rolling rack. This will allow the skin to harden up and for the fruit to become sweeter. Butternut will most likely be shared with our pantry guests in October.

We have been picking 5-12 pounds of tomatoes twice per week for most of September. While the fruit size has gotten slightly smaller throughout the month, we are still picking plenty of beautiful tomatoes.

Tonight, for example, we picked more than 10 pounds of tomatoes that will be shared with another food pantry. We’ve learned that, with just a small amount of color change, picked tomatoes fully ripen in only a few days.

We are very fortunate our plants grew very tall this year, which limited our resident groundhog’s tomato consumption. Trust me, he eats plenty, but we have been able to share our bounty with pantry guests, at our WCHI free community meals and with other food pantries.

If you recall, our corn bed did not have good germination, so we planted sweet peppers and basil in the space. The pepper plants have started yielding a good number of sweet peppers, with the first large picking yielding more than 30 peppers for our Sept. 18 pantry distribution. Our basil plants were harvested for September and have harvest opportunity for October and beyond.

Our original pepper plants continue to produce well, including sweet and hot varieties. Our original basil has flowered but continues to send out new branches underneath, which we harvested for September.

Our former potato bed, now our fall bed, has been growing extremely well! We harvested half of our radishes for first distribution and the remainder for second distribution. As these were picked, they were rubber-banded in bundles of five or six. Each week, we harvested about 6 pounds of radishes, and these were a popular selection for our pantry guests.

Remaining in the fall bed are cilantro, parsley and red beets. Tonight, Sue Butchinski moved the dirt away from one of the red beets, and it was about the size of a large marble. These should be able to be harvested for one or both October distributions. The cilantro is coming along and should be able to be cut in October. The parsley is very sparse, so the yield opportunity remains to be seen.

Thanks to everyone who has been dropping fresh produce on the table at the Re/Max Unlimited office at 1080 Schadt Ave., Whitehall. Year to date, you have donated 191 pounds of your vegetable and fruit bounty! Your garden excess may be donated 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and your generosity is greatly appreciated.

Year to date, our pantry has donated 600 pounds of vegetables and fruit to the pantry network through Lehigh Valley Plant-A-Row. Included are pantry garden vegetables, community-donated vegetables and leftover vegetables and fruit provided to us by Second Harvest.

Due to loss of daylight, our pantry garden work nights are now 6-6:45 p.m. Tuesdays, and all are welcome to join in our fun. Bring your favorite work gloves or use some of ours.

Hang in there with your summer gardens! Frost will be here before you know it.

Editor’s note: This piece was written by Gwen Herzog, WCHI Food Pantry garden chair.