Enough With The Veggies Already

Okay, okay. I can hear you saying you don't want to see any more pictures of produce from my garden. And I understand. I'm actually more than ready to forget the garden and go hunker down in my quilt room myself.

BUT . . . this post is more for me than anyone else as I want to document the date and what I just harvested from the garden. Still having these veggies available from an outside garden (even though I have cold frames over the cucs and peppers) on October 20th up here in one of the most northern parts of the U.S. . . . well, I'm flummoxed. And who says we're not experiencing global warming? Talk about a change in climate.

When we first moved here in the early 70s, it was not at all uncommon to have killing frosts near the end of August. This year we've had the one night (October 2nd/3rd) when our early morning temperature was 28°. That's been our coldest to date. The tomatoes pictured in the display above were picked off a plant that I stuck in the ground without any protection because I had no where else to put it. I mean it wasn't grown in a cold frame or in one of our plastic wrapped tomato cages. Go figure.

My pumpkins and Red Kuri squash are still continuing to color-up even though the frost the early part of the month zapped their vines.

Despite the later-than-usual abundance of veggies, the end of it all can't be too far off. Our daytime temps haven't hit 60° in a while (actually hovering more in the low 50s) and nearly all of the leaves have blown off the trees. And, listen, can you hear the wind that has been prevailing for several days? It's whispering, "November is coming, November is coming, November is coming . . . .”

Yep, with luck, this will be the last picture of garden produce you'll have to view this year. (Well, of course, except when we harvest the main crop of our potatoes and carrots . . . sorry.)