it's over

This week, as the temperatures plummeted to freezing, I realized it's over (the growing season). The night before our first frost I ventured to the garden to attempt to get anything and everything I possibly could (not much).

I did manage to salvage about two dozen tomatoes, not ripe yet. So, I put them in the window and let them ripen off the vine.

Today, I decided I'd better do something with them and it is going to be tomato juice! My mom visited last week from sunny Arizona and brought her tomato juice recipe for me, so that's what I'm doing.

Unfortunately, 20 tomatoes doesn't get me a lot of juice. So, instead of canning it, I decided I'd just make chili or goulash for supper tonight. Seems like a lot of work... but I refuse to let anything from my garden go to waste.

This was a good year for some things: spinach, swiss chard, potatoes, lettuce - cool season crops did so well.

Bad year for: tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins - it was just too cold.

Next week it is supposed to warm up, and I'm going to clean out the garden... get every last bit of gunk out of there, maybe burn... and get it ready to plant some garlic next month. Garlic is planted in November around here...

Happy Fall!