Last Saturday night it froze a wee bit, but the garden was fine and we had warm weather until last night.
Last night the frost seemed minor when I checked at 4:30 AM, so I crawled back into bed until 6 and then went out to spray the raspberries, squashes, and pumpkins with water. (Everything else was covered with old sheets.) When Miss 10 came out to enjoy the excitement, she noticed that the tops of the sheets were hard with frosted dew. Oops! It was a significant frost after all, but everything survived, again. What a blessing!
By the time I came inside, Miss 10 had made a big pot of hot tea and we sat around the table enjoying tea before breakfast.
This afternoon we picked the rest of the pumpkins, butternut squashes, and spaghetti squashes, and they are sitting in the sunshine on the lawn to cure. We don’t have a huge crop, but enough for us and maybe some to give away as well.
The next frost risk is Sunday evening, and unless the forecast worsens, we’ll leave all the green tomatoes in the garden so they can ripen naturally. Covering them should be enough. Sometime next week we’ll have to pick them all, though, and find a place to store them while they ripen.
We made half the year’s supply of salsa a few days ago and will hopefully have enough tomatoes to make more. If not, well, then we’ll have more time for schoolwork. The kids don’t mind either way.
We also have 26 tiny packages of hot pepper in the freezer. Chopping just a few hot peppers is no big deal, but yesterday after two gallons of them, my hands were stinging. They still felt tingly and warm while I was spraying the garden this morning, a pleasant feeling on a frosty morning. Not that I would do hot peppers before a frost on purpose, but it worked.
There are mountains of chard to freeze yet today, but I’m too tired. Instead, I’ll putter about, get the house back into shape after a time of harvest-induced neglect, make a nice supper, and maybe fix Miss 10’s party dress and my black sweather for a wedding this weekend.
Tomorrow we’ll do the chard and whatever else needs doing, including, maybe the review of Alpha-Phonics that’s well under way.
What a blessed life we have: a late frost; lots of good, homegrown food; a lifestyle that allows us to interact with nature; an abundance of healthy work; and each other.
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For more about the simple joys of life, see Amy’s Finer Things.
Wow, your garden has done so well this year! I don’t have to worry about the first frost ’till sometime next month. We didn’t get any butternut squashes but a bunch of spaghetti squash. Butternut is my favorite. Maybe next year! Gardening is challenging but I appreciate(usually) the element of surprise that comes with it.
I hope you and your family can soak up lots of sunshine before the cold really hits!
We’re very happy that the frost is holding off this year; once we had a bad one around Aug 26!
I still have to figure out what to do with our spaghetti squash. We have never grown it before, but it seemed like a good idea. What do you do with yours?
I love gardening too, mostly for the peace of working outside doing measureable, ‘finishable’ tasks.
That garden sure keeps you busy. Glad your produce survived the frost.
You are indeed blessed! Our first frost should not be for another month. I have a ton of green tomatoes still on the vines. I am hoping they turn red, but not all at once.
We have tons of chard too. Do you freeze it alone and I assume it needs to be blanched? We had been making chard and kale chips with them, which last about 5 minutes in our house.
Our spaghetti squash is used for spaghetti dishes. I love it and the kids don’t complain.