Some plants just can’t take a joke. And Mother Nature has a sense of humor. A hard frost was predicted for the middle of last week, and frost it did, not super hard but below 30F was enough of a frost to make some plants wilt and the leaves turned black. So, a harvesting we did go.
Overnight the tomato plants died down to half their original height. Sigh. And some of the Romas were just starting to turn color, too.
But on the good side it was a bright clear sunny day, perfect for picking things.
The squash plants were particularly upset by the low overnight temperatures.
Amazingly enough some plants that we thought would be very upset didn’t seem to notice. There must have been a pocket of warmish air swirling around the corn plants, for instance. Those didn’t care at all, and it is beginning to look like we are going to see ripe corn out of the garden. Even some of the smallest plants are setting ears of corn. Wow. The melon plants lost over half of their leaves but enough stayed good that we left the plants in the ground and we’ll see what they do. Those were an experiment anyway, we didn’t expect to get anything out of them.
The pepper plants which never looked good at all, the whole time, looked even worse after the frost.
The largest pepper is called a Gourmet, and we have no idea if it is hot, or mild. Three Anaheim peppers joined the queue, and a little pile of baby Bell peppers are in a row behind them. And then there are the hotter peppers. We don't know which was which, but they add a nice kick to anything I've put them in. And that's it for peppers out of 16 plants. Next year will be better.
Learning about growing peppers we have been enlightened that they don’t like it too hot, they don’t like it too cold, they like it just right. Goldilocks plants!
These wrapping paper boxes are perfect for storing the multitudes of green tomatoes we have, 40 pounds of them. We have four boxes of tomatoes just like this.
Theoretically they will ripen. Once they start to show a little color I will take them out of the box and put them on windowsill to finish ripening. Because the boxes are shallow it is going to be easy to see who needs to be moved out. Just think of all the sauce I could have made, and still can, actually, if enough of them ripen at one time. So I’m not giving up hope.
Zucchini to be made into bread today, and then I'll freeze some for later. The only Spaghetti squash that got big enough needs to be baked, and that is high on the agenda.
Some of the cherry tomatoes are turning, and the rest have been put into a drawer in the kitchen to keep an eye on them for ripening. They will go on the windowsill like the other tomatoes when they start to show color.
And I made nine jars of pickles, four of them this week from the cucumbers which had to be picked along with the rest of the produce. Today I need to do something with beets, they are getting large and need to be harvested.
Not bad for a first year garden 🙂 We still have lots of things that weren’t the least bit fazed by cold overnight temperatures and they are still growing happily. Next year we are going to have hoops over the raised beds to help extend the season and prevent early fall frosts from interrupting the vine ripening we were hoping for. Fun!!!