Before The Frost

The first frost last night prompted us to glean what we could from the remainder of the summer garden - mostly roselle, small eggplants, and fiery-hot peppers.  A beautiful magenta amaranth plant that had volunteered in the winter garden was harvested for soup greens.  Ethan pulled up the entire hot pepper plants to finish harvesting after dark at home.  There were just too many little peppers.

The greenery on the pepper plants was just beautiful.  It was too bad the frost came before Thanksgiving, because it would have made such decorative garlands with the little peppers still on it like fairy lights.

The first radishes and greens were ready to pick from the winter garden this week.  We covered the entire winter garden last night before the sunlight had faded.  I've had so many seasons before when a light frost came and killed the entire garden - even things that are supposed to be winter-hardy, like Arugula and Siberian kale.

It is always a little sad to say goodbye to a garden - this was the final end of the summer garden.  All attention is now turned to the winter garden, and looking forward to spring, when it will be time to have all the summer plants starting again.  In a month, it will be time to start tomatoes already.  And the frosts will make the winter greens and radishes mild and sweet.