When I checked the climate file this morning, I decided a caution from the National Weather Service about the number one frost of the 12 months hitting in the wee hours of closing night time. (Why the NWS didn't warn me about this when I checked my telephone very last night time, in place of warning me approximately tornadoes that had already hit the region the night time in advance than, I'm not quite certain.) Fortunately, it appears to have generally spared our right away location; one among our peppers looks a piece frostbitten, but the rest of the peppers and tomatoes still on the vines, and what is left of the basil and beans, appearance unharmed.
Still, this modified into a well timed reminder to us that it is about time to begin getting our nest geared up for wintry weather. So nowadays, we have been looking after diverse little errands like changing the windshield wipers on the car (which includes the rear one, which modified into long overdue), stocking it with an ice scraper and mini shovel, checking the situation of our roof gutters, and draining the rain barrel. Brian additionally went via the garlic we might harvested this summer (and already eaten a number of) to appearance how plenty we had left to plant. Unfortunately, the answer grew to emerge as out to be a lot much less than he perception, as some of the heads had rotted, no matter being cured with their stalk s on within the accredited way. So even though he planted everything we had left, it looks like our garlic crop subsequent yr can be no large than this 12 months's. Next yr, probable we're going to try deciding on them a piece earlier and making sure we get all of the dirt off before curing them.
He then determined, due to the reality frost is apparently a potential chance at this factor, to go in advance and choose all of the final peppers and squash. (There are best three squash right here, however he'd already introduced in about 9 others.) He also harvested what become left of the basil, which he's going to grind up and freeze (the fine method we've got determined for preserving domestic-grown basil). However, he did no longer contact the green tomatoes left on the plants, because none of them were starting to blush however. We determine we've got a better danger of gleaning a few extra ripe tomatoes through leaving them at the vines a chunk longer, taking our chances with future frosts, than we do with the aid of method of selecting them now and looking to ripen them in a area, which hasn't worked altogether correctly for us inside the past.
One exclusive crop he harvested is most of our last Climbing French beans. He made a point of letting a number of these beans flow dry at the vine in order that he ought to have a deliver of seed for next year, considering that we can't purchase those at Fedco. As a end result, we didn't get as many of the ones beans for consuming this yr as I'd hoped for, however we've got got an entire bunch for planting. So he picked and shelled most of these, and we will set them aside for next 12 months's lawn.
Now the best question is, what lets do with all this cute produce? Since that is the final harvest of our 2019 lawn (except we control to get some more tomatoes), it deserves a little some thing specific to commemorate it. I could have liked to make the filled acorn squash that my new preferred vegan blog (the one wherein I placed the vegan mozzarella recipe we have been the usage of for the beyond couple of months) served up a recipe for these days, but I did no longer realise how properly it might art work with butternut squash. And we'd need to build up some dried cranberries for it, except. So we're going to should attempt that one some one of a kind time, probably as our Recipe of the Month for November.
For this night, the plan is to make a simple fried rice the use of a number of our freshly harvested Carmen peppers and Thai basil. It'll be a ultimate taste of summer season to bid farewell to the warmer days and welcome the bloodless wintry weather in. And we are able to most probable follow that up with a batch of chocolate pudding and a chunk of the vegan coconut whipped cream that we were overjoyed to find out is again in inventory at Trader Joe's. We're hoping this may artwork for us higher than the coconut-primarily based Reddi Wip we tried, which were given stuck in the bottle and might no longer dispense. If it's far correct, it might be the very last piece of the puzzle?Or at least the biggest remaining piece?In our tries to move dairy-free.
Then it is off to snuggle up on the couch with a blanket, some Critical Role, and the cats (in the event that they cooperate), earlier than turning again the clocks and tucking ourselves in for a protracted wintry weather's nap.
