As I was sitting here wondering what I was going to write about, I started thinking about how it's probably getting cold outside. Then I thought about how I read this morning that the National Weather service thinks the temperature might drop down to 29 degrees tonight. Then the epiphany struck: 29 means frost!
So I just returned from a very late afternoon emergency tomato picking. There comes a time in the cycle of every garden where you go out for that final harvest. During the final harvest, you have to make decisions on what you care about and what is heading to Compost Land.
I picked all the tomatoes, but today I learned that the squash are becoming strange and disgusting. I've also given up on the beans. I suppose if I had continued watering them, it might have helped the harvesting program, but I kept thinking it would rain. So now they just look limp and depressed.
On my journey outside, I gathered up about 800 incredibly green tomatoes and a few salvageable squash and brought them in. Some people put a few green tomatoes on the windowsill and watch them happily ripen. Not me. I have several BOXES of bright green rocklike tomatoes in my basement. I should be making spaghetti sauce sometime in November, I think.
And by doing all this picking this evening, I have virtually guaranteed that it will not frost tonight. Get ready for an Indian summer ;-)
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