I started with cutting down the tomato plants and bringing in all the green tomatoes. I had a good full bucket's worth.
I took off all of the green peppers that were late starts but hung on their stems after all.
I collected over 1 lb of green beans still hanging on their vines. I am so sorry that I started the bushes late because many plants still have flowers.
I had a small handful of eggplants I salvaged.
I took the rest of my fall planted radishes.
I harvested all of our beets and carrots, though they would have been fine to leave out as well as for the radishes.
I took in the rest of our dry shelling beans.
I collected lingering blossoms of Rosa rugosa blooms to dry.
I cut (almost) every basil plant and brought them in to dry. I have two huge mounds of basil plants. One covers the kitchen counter. The other fills a bushel basket in the garage.
I harvested the remaining butternut squash, zucchini, patty pan and pumpkin squashes.
I cut flowers of Dahlia and Status to bring inside.
I brought in all of my plants on the deck which include purple basil, holy basil, lemon basil, lemon balm, rosemary and hot peppers to name a few. How well they do inside is any one's guess. I think there is much shock that occurs with bringing plants in as there is with leaving them out in the cold.
What will survive this hard frost? I suspected the kale, brussel sprouts, leeks and cabbage would. I suspected my couple broccoli plants would and so would the "winter lettuce".
I also collected more wild grapes. It was a long overdue task. I am so sorry it took so long to get to them. The weakening plants helped me pull the vines. Though, I only got one bucket full after quite a time of trying to reach them. They are wild and wild they do grow; up into the trees with their bunchiest grape clusters high into the tree branches so that no one could ever reach them unless the trees were cut down.
The clouds began to clear after their morning lingering with a light rain, and the wind picked up. I was certain it was going to be a starry night- our first hard frost.
As the sun began to set the chill started to set in. I went to bed with the temperature being 37F. By morning it was 25F! A thick carpet of frosted grass glistened in the morning sunrise. It crunched as I stepped out onto the lawn. What lay did lay.
Later I took a look around outside to see what stood up to our first frost. The parsley on the deck was untouched. So, were the perennial herbs. The blossoms of Echinacea were perfect. Hyssop, Winter Savory and the Marshmallows also looked just fine. In the garden, as I suspected, the cole crops were untouched and so were the leeks. My little patch of celery seemed to have liked that refreshing chill. Who would know?
I cut down our corn stalks and bunched them up into six bundles and tied them to the deck posts. I added a few fiery red, orange and yellow straw flowers that I had saved from a prior year. Then, I brought out the pumpkins from the garage and helped decorate my now barren deck-scape.
Today the rain returned. It's windy with trees letting go of their summer tired leaves of yellow and pale brown. There are a few maples that add to the more striking reds and oranges one sees in the horizon about us. We lost our only sugar maple in the ice storm of 2008. This was a hot summer with little moisture. I am sure the leaves are a bit pale for lack of moisture to make their beautiful sugars of color. Color or not, it is time for the leaves to fall. It is time. How summer went so fast!
