We left Mid October for a trip, gone 3 weeks. We left, and the rain began. The house got rain, enough to fill our almost empty water tanks. It almost kept the temperatures in the mid 60-70’s. The plants loved it. We came back to happy and healthy plants. I don’t think we lost anything.
Then last night, we got our first freeze. Last night we hit a low of 31.8 degrees. We are due for the same tonight. It looks like the weather is changing. We’ll warm up for a few days, then nights will cool down. They aren’t expecting more freezing nights, at least not in the 10 day forecast. Most nights will be in the 50-40’s.
We were lucky enough to have our friend come help cover plants before the freeze. He also picked the produce we had ready or ready-ish to pick. He picked a lot of green tomatoes. I’m thinking of trying to make pickled green tomatoes. I found a recipe online that looks easy enough – greens tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic, and then a brine. I might try it with a small amount of tomatoes and see how we like it.
While we were gone, my other half got sick during the trip. Actually a lot of people got sick on the trip – not norovirus. I think the weather was cooler and wetter than most people expected. I know some people complained about one excursion in particular. A “boat cruise” turned out to be more a speed boat ride with just thin plastic covers, in wet and cold weather. Apparently many of the guests got sick after this excursion. They developed a lot of coughs, cold type of symptoms. Hubby has had this for over 3 weeks now – he caught it on the cruise. I came down with it the evening after we got home. I’ve seen the doctor, and am on antibiotics and steroids. What does this have to do with anything, you ask? We have Thanksgiving coming up in a few days. I’m supposed to cook turkey dinner.
Our turkey day menu includes turkey, gravy, twice baked potatoes, carrots, broccoli, rolls, Mexican pecan pie. I figure onion dip with veggies and potato chips to start. I’ve already made the onion dip from scratch. I’m planning to working on the potatoes and pie tomorrow. The turkey is a breast only, no legs or wings. I’m not sure about making dressing. I’ve found a lot of the recipes online. I’m trying to figure out if there is anything I can made that will use any of the garden veggies.
So what came out of the yard? The garden haul includes – lemons, tomatoes ripe and unripe, jalapenos, bell peppers, other peppers, zucchini. We’ve covered the lemons plants, basil, berry plants, melon plants, and some plants didn’t need to be covered. Hey, at least the plants I needed covered got covered.