Frost Harvest

We have had our first real hard frost so I had to go through and salvage what I could from the garden, which actually was quite a lot.  Inside the greenhouse there was plenty of frost damage on the outer parts of the plants, but most of the plants seemed to have survived.  The peppers took the chill a lot harder than the tomatoes, and many of them were mostly dead, so I went ahead and picked all that I could off the dead plants.


A few in the middle still seemed to be hanging on, so I left them to ripen for a few more days.  The tomatoes had a good number of ripened fruit so I picked all that I could and left the rest to ripen on the vines.  The lower portions of the plants still looked healthy and only the outermost leaves were damaged, so I figured they would be just fine.

The cucumbers weren't kept under cover and I am happy to report that the cucumber harvest has come to an end.  The plants were completely dead, but the fruits themselves didn't seem damaged, so I picked every last one that I could find.  I will probably keep these for fresh eating over then next few weeks.

The final big harvest was quite impressive to me.  I am happy to add many more peppers to the freezer.  Most of the tomatoes will go to the freezer for sauce, but I will keep snacking on them here and there as long as they are fresh on the table.  The cucumbers will make up some of my salads until they start to go bad and then the remainder will feed the chickens.

The end of the season is always a mixture of sadness and relief.  I am glad that I won't have to pickle any more cucumbers this year, but I am sad the season has come to a close.  At least the workload in the garden will be reduced and I can focus on preparing the garden for next year.  I will clear out the finished beds and add a layer of mulch to the top.  Now is the time to plant garlic for next year, so I will have to spend some time preparing that bed in the next few weeks.  I still have some beds happily growing my frost tolerant veggies like cabbage, brussel sprouts, peas, and spinach.  Luckily those beds need very little input from me until harvest time, so I will let them do their thing for a while longer yet.