End of the season

Our first serious frost was last week - 27 degrees. So the tomato plants are history, and my life is my own again. There's a sadness in all the dead plants, but relief in not having to worry or work anymore. And as the days get shorter and colder and wetter, the indoors becomes more appealing. We'll still be enjoying the garden, from the freezer or pantry or the cool place in the barn where we keep potatoes and squash. And of course the greens are growing happily outside now, and there are beets and carrots still to be dug up.

The "Long Keeper" tomatoes we keep in the pantry in the house; last year we had fresh tomatoes until February. (they were terrible, but Jay ate them happily). And there are still peppers growing in the greenhouse - I don't know what I'll do with them all - we don't grow that many, really, but we don't normally use that many. And I have *got* to dig up the jersalem artichokes - last year I never got to it, which meant a 9' jungle; they grow into a reasonable stand if you do carefully harvest them all. I haven't been happy with the dishes of jersalem artichokes lately - maybe peeling really is necessary.

We picked the last of the melons in the greenhouse last week, just before the frost. This is the first year we had a decent crop of melons. This year we tried ha-ogen in a large planter box in the greenhouse, trellised on a tomato cage, and they grew lushly and produced perhaps 5 or 6 fragrant, juicy, perfect melons - I knew they were ready to pick when I would go into the greenhouse and the fragrance filled the air.

And lastly, surprising observations: yacons are not at all frost hardy, hopefully the tubers are okay. But chickpeas didn't seem bothered by the frost. Of course there are about 10 actual chickpeas in the patch, so it doesn't really matter...