First hard frost finally hit

Crazy that I’m writing this on Nov. 15, right? Usually everything is dead in the garden just before Halloween.

Sure, temps got down to around 32 a few times, but on Saturday the high was near 70 and I was out in t-shirt and shorts. (And to be honest, I’m not sure that was a killer frost … maybe it was later in the week.)

I finally harvested almost all of the parsley on Sunday … almost all because there was so much. Wow did we let it go this year. Got to use more of it during the summer grilling season!

The basil gave out a while ago, but oh those tomatoes! It’s been a great year, especially for Cherokee Purple, Amana Orange (more yellow to me) and of course Sungold. Our Rutgers variety was a dud this time (hold out for Ramapo?) and I wasn’t impressed with the bicolor Rutgers Sunrise.

All those green tomatoes that filled that 6-quart/6-liter container? They’ve been ripening inside. Oh those flavors! It’s going to be hard to switch to bland, no make that flavorless tomatoes for months and months.

The jalapeños went gangbusters. The final harvest filled a mixing bowl. What to do with them? I finally settled on a couple of batches of jalapeño jelly. Nice kick!

And was the crazy dry summer the reason why a zucchini plant lasted past Halloween?