First Frost

We had our first frost last Thursday and Friday nights (Nov 4 and 5th), so the previous Tuesday I picked out the malabar spinach, two tiny eggplants, and two giant bowls full of green tomatoes, as well as about a gallon of peppers.  This gardening year was not bad.  If we hadn't had a record number (over 90) of 90+ temperatures, it would have been a great year!  As it was, the garden didn't get its second wind until early October when it finally cooled down a little (although we still had some 90+ record setting days!) and thus there wasn't much time for tomatoes and peppers to get much size and ripen.

Last week I also turned about 6 lbs of granny smith apples into 2 pints of apple butter in the crockpot -- delicious and easy!  Tonight we will have some of the apple butter with cheese filled ravioli (standing in for pierogis) and sour cream.  I'd make some roasted cabbage to go with it, but alas I had neglected to buy any this week.  We'll have to do with broccoli or green beans I think.  And maybe some sweet potatoes.

My Garden

Here is a picture of my side flower garden

This is my flower garden in our side yard, between the house and the driveway.  This was in early July I think, with rose campion and hydrangeas in bloom.

In front of the gate structure (the picture is taken facing the street)is a turquoise painted locust tree log that used to function as a bottle tree with a bird house on top.  The bottles have all fallen off and the bird house has rotted, unfortunately.  Now I keep my bottles on branch stubs on the redbud tree that is in front of all this.

view of my vegetable garden, the bean teepee and showy primrose

Here is part of my raised vegetable garden, again in early July.  This is the southwest bed of my four square parterre garden.  It shows my bean teepee where I grow chinese long beans, some squash (which never produced and bit the dust) and some showy primrose that comes up throughout my garden and yard, as well as my little fence to keep out the dog and chickens.