Frost on the Farm

These pretty little flowers survived two nights of frost

The frost finally arrived, blackening basil plants, leaving the flower garden a bit darker, and killing off several other things as well.  However, most crops affected by the frost were nearing the end of their lives anyway.  The tomatoes, already diseased and rotting, were already begging us to pull them out of the ground.  The eggplants have had a good solid run and we hope you have enjoyed them and found many ways to cook them. Prior to the frost we stripped the eggplant plants of their fruits as well as the peppers.  We covered some of the basil and brought out a large cover to protect the greens for the winter share, which are spring seedlings right now.  I woke in the morning to a frost covered world, but it seems to have come at a perfect time.  Now the air is crisp and the sun is shining.  The mosquitoes are nowhere to be seen.  Today we dug up sweet potatoes, beautiful treasures that have been hidden under the soil all summer.  Then we dug the celeriac, or celery root, and took it to the root cellar.  As I type this I can smell celery from the scent the plants left on my hands.  We continue to harvest and fill our root cellar with delicious storage crops for the late fall and winter.