First Frost

Our first frost was Oct. 6. We had already picked all the things we wanted to save except for some in the greenhouse. The evening of the 8th, it went down to -9 and all the delicate stuff in the greenhouse died, as it is has been cloudy for days and could not warm up during the day via passive heat. The spinach and cilantro made it through. If it warms up again, it will resume growing.

We had a great Thanksgiving meal at Anna's on Friday and are scheduled to go out to Mike's parents house today around 3. We gave Anna one of the 4 big basil plants we brought in, but have been making lots of pesto with the rest.

This morning we are hoping to dig out the rest of the carrots, potatoes and beets. The ground isn't frozen, although we have about an inch of snow. It looks very strange with the green leaves on the trees.

In the fall, we usually clean out the rain barrels, put away lawn furniture, clean out planter boxes etc. So far that had been hard to do with the snow, so we are hoping for a good melt. If we can work around the snow, that's the priority for today.

Mike continues to can tomatoes at a rapid rate. We get about 2 large ziplocs every day ripening from the tomatoes we have in the basement. At this point, we are boiling it down to sauces and paste, as we have lots of salsa and canned tomatoes.