Possible Frost Tonight

[spamtrap]

Possible frost here (northern PA) tonight. The weather forecast is for high 30s, but that's 55 miles away and at least 1000 feet lower than we are.

We picked: 6 cukes, 3 small pattypan squash, 1 large zucchini, a lot of chard (frost won't hurt it, but it just needed to be picked), tomatoes, and a lot of green beans, and masses of sage, curly parsley, and flat-leaf (Italian) parsley.

I brought the rosemary plant in for the winter.

I've been blanching and freezing most of the afternoon. The herbs will be wait in the fridge until morning, and then I'll get them into the dehydrator for drying.

Growing in the garden and won't mind frost: chard, Chinese cabbage, kale, lettuce. That's all I got planted for a fall garden, we thought we were moving and I didn't have the heart to plant more at the time.

I have more chard, more lettuce, some Vitaminna (Asian green) and baby bok choy coming along in little 6-cell packs, they can get transplanted out to the garden whenever I have time. I don't know if they'll have time to produce a crop before real hard cold sets in - they probably will.

If we do have frost, I'll miss the tomatoes!

Pat

[Steve]

The word snow appeared in the forecast for the first time this year. They don't mention that 4 letter word on the Weather Channel so I'm going by them. That was for Thursday. Our closest TV station is 70 miles away and 1500 feet lower elevation, but they do mention us in their forecast. They are the ones who mentioned snow. I brought in a big basket of ripe and nearly ripe tomatoes tonight. If I believe it will really freeze later this week, I'll bring in lots more, including some green ones. We WILL make to to October 1st without frost so this is a winning year. :-)

Steve >

[Grandpa]

[Frogleg]

Don't knock it. All you need is water. Rain is best, but now that August's gone...get out the hose. No mildew; no blackspot on roses; long hot spells for tomatoes and peppers. And that sky over the mountains -- no 'white days' of horroble haze and humidity. Cooler in shade; cool at night; perspiration evaporating instead of clinging stickily to the skin. Enjoy!

[spamtrap]

We will too - no frost last night. :)

Pat

[Ross Reid]

We're almost due North of Erie, PA. Heavy frost here last night. Matter of fact, it's now 9:15 AM and the grass is still white where it's in the shade. I'm afraid it's curtains for the tomatoes and eggplant that were still left in the garden. Ross, Ontario, Canada. New AgCanada Zone 5b

43º19' North 80º16' West

[Larry Blanchard]

Pat, just for info, your munged address still causes a load on your ISP because the right part is valid. It would be better to modify the second part such as: " [e-mail]" or the like. That way the spammers mail never gets to your ISP.

[Tina Gibson]

[spamtrap]

Whoops! Upon closer investigation, I find that I was unhappily mistaken about that - the tomatoes and cukes are OK, but the eggplants are frost-killed, and the huge pattypan squash is frost-burnt on the top - it's looking very unhappy.

So we didn't *quite* make it until October 1 - we definitely had some degree of frost last night.

Pat

[Grandpa]

The roses sure do like the cooler weather. They bloomed nicely during the heat of the summer (this year was exceptionally hot) and seem to love it now. New stems popping up all over them and a fresh round of blooms, 3rd this year. I think they like the chicken manure mix & water I gave them too.

My tomatos did terrible, those in the direct sun. Our MinPins love tomatos and I think they helped spread the seeds. Several popped up amongst the flowers and produced like crazy in the shade of the other flowers. Not so in the sun.

Frogleg wrote:

[spamtrap]

It's a virtual-domain and I have no way of knowing if - for example - someone else is using 'pasture.pair.com'.

Then it would be someone else's problem..... not nice.

Pat

[Pat Kiewicz]

I pulled all my ripest squash yesterday. There is a chance of a freeze overnight tonight -- with no warm weather to follow any time soon.

Oh well. Going to prep a bed for garlic this weekend.

[Phaedrine Stonebridge]

I just did the same today.... maybe an early frost tonight here as well. I picked nearly ten pounds of the zuchetta trombonici or however you spell that lol. We only planted them in August and never dreamed they'd do this well. So I will be making a nice batch of zucchini pickles in the AM as well as shredding & freezing the last of my Raven hybrids.

I also picked nearly another bushel of chiles and sweet peppers. LOL... I think maybe next year I may plant a few less. My freezer is bursting with them already. There were also ten small eggplants with tons more little ones on the plants. Tons of green tomatoes which we really do not care for pickled (yet anyway). There were only a few black-eye peas left and the limas were few with tons of beautiful foliage--- hmmmmm. That should not have happened. We also feasted on the last of the raspberries which are still going strong. The parsnips and carrots are still going strong.

And speaking of garlic, we like to spread ours around the various planting beds of flowers as another deer deterrant.

[EV]

Sorry to hear it. Here in Zone 6 southern Ontario, it's 40 F at the moment, but I know that frost is coming. Some of the tips on my tomatoes look at bit nipped. I'm just crossing my fingers that I get to them before the big one hits. Such a short season. Hardly got any tomatillos, which is very disappointing. Last year I had 'ice raspberies' on October 24th. Looks like it'll be way earlier this year. Sigh.

Me too. Try to dig out all that horseradish that came back from last year. I did not know until just recently how invasive it is. They should put a warning on the label!

I'm freezing sack of san marzanos and assorted green tomatoes now. Going to make a cayenne pepper tincture using vodka as a solvent. I want to see how it'll work as instant heat in soups, stews and such.

We make a tasty green tomato/sweet pepper relish that's great on hot dogs and hamburgers. It's from an old canning and preserving book with lots of farm recipes. But even still, I'll be giving alot of green tomatoes away (not an easy thing to do) and composting the rest. Sigh.

Nature's not fair!

I wish it deterred squirrels.

Ether

[Ross Reid]

We're also in Southern Ontario, (in the western most part of The "New" City of Hamilton, but certainly not by choice). Zone 5b, still it's due North of Erie, PA ;-). Frost last night was much heavier than the one the other night. We have tomatillos "up to here" but, haven't found anything we really like them in. Any suggestions? Ross, Ontario, Canada. New AgCanada Zone 5b

43º19' North 80º16' West

[EV]

Hope I'm still Zone 6 under the new zone system. It would really hurt to be demoted. I'm in TO's extreme east.

Send them to me! :-D

I have a fabulous recipe for tomatillo pasta sauce. Uses lots of garlic and hot peppers, fresh parsley etc. With garlic shrimp on the side, it's very tasty. Also have a great cooked Salsa Verde recipe that's good for canning. If you're interested in either I can post the recipes.

Frost has been nipping, but so far so good.

EV PS my email addie is a fake to avoid spam.

[Ross Reid]

I would be interested in the recipes, if others are interested you could post them or, you can email them to me if you wish.

Thanks, Ross, Ontario, Canada. New AgCanada Zone 5b

43º19' North 80º16' West

[spamtrap]

Please post them! I've got tomatillos in the fridge just waiting for a good salsa recipe to come along...

And the pasta one sounds really nice.

Pat

[EV]

I've posted them in a new thread.

Ether

[EV]

Posted in a separate thread. For the pasta sauce I've been known to sub whichever hot peppers I have handy, or whichever kind of parsley is around.

The cooked Salsa recipe is a fave around here. I've included a fresh uncooked recipe, but I honestly can't often bring myself to mess up the kitchen to make just one cup of anything. :-)

Ether