Fruit of the field

I have fruit. I have two eggplants, lots of banana peppers and several cool looking gourds. Not sure what to do with them all but they are there. I have started gearing up for the fall. Yesterday, Dave and I were out for almost 5 hours, clearing beds, mowing and laying mulch. With it being so hot, no one has wanted to be out there and the weeds got out of control. Things look much better now and I have gotten out the books and seeds and am starting to plan for the fall. I have decided that I have tried to do too much variety and will only plant two or three things this fall. I am definitly doing green beans (since the Verizon guys destroyed my spring plants). I am thinking I would like to try potatoes but am nervous because I have no idea how. My garden has been such a chaotic experiment. I try not to look at the loss as waste but as a learning experience. Each year it gets better, I get better at it. The pond hasn't made much progress since Dave was in Maryland for a couple of weeks. Hopefully that will be ready to go by the end of August. The animals are doing well despite the heat and Bertha faithfully lays an egg every day for us. I will be tossing some of their contributions into the compost heap this week to get the process going a little faster. The pond dirt covered up my ready compost :( so I am without that black gold. Anyway, hope to have more updates coming soon.