Frosty Nights

Got the first night of 3 that will bottom out in the mid 20's (˚F) last night. This caused Eugene great anxiety so he went out and harvested as many greens as he could. He got 8 pounds of chard, some nice but small heads of a lettuce (marvel of 4 seasons, Simpson and one lollo rossa), some tasty but windburned spinach (and e-coli free to boot!), a couple of pounds of pac choy and a bit of spring mix (4 6oz bags IIRC). Plus he pulled all the leeks that were not in a hoophouse which came to around 20 leeks and all the beets (most are small and many have been chewed upon by the varmints).

It's hard to let go of one's garden but nature will force the issue. Of course we being some of those crazy season extension growers we make nature really forces the issue before we give up on the garden and that has not happened yet. So we will be harvesting kale, brussle sprouts, broccoli, cabbages, spinach, chard, spring mix and maybe some lettuce for at least 6 more weeks (longer if the el Nino, predicted for this winter/spring, really kicks in and gives us a dry and mild winter, than we get to harvest practically all 12 months). The cold may well kill off the cukes, melons, zukes, tomatoes, peppers and eggplant but that's okay. They were not producing all that well or if they were the varmints were eating the fruits of our labors. The hoophouses will either be moved over the kale, broccoli, cabbages, brussle sprouts or will be left in place all winter and be planted with something like radishes, spring mix, arugula, etc., sometime in January or early Feb. This will insure that we have greens in March.

And for the meantime we have some really nice leafy green type produce at the farm store and will be bringing what we do not sell today and tomorrow to the farmers' market on Saturday (last one of the year-Yay!)