With the cold and wet weather that was sure to come our way this weekend, we made a big push yesterday to get the last of the summer crops harvested.  It was a long day, what with deliveries to be made late in the afternoon, but we got quite a bit of produce out of the ground and into storage.  Well, at least short-term storage.  I still need to sort and organize it all and get it into winter storage (a.k.a. the basement).

Peppers, potatoes, squash, and lettuce loaded up in the Subaru

Last of the tomatoes, and a cooler full of beets and radishes

Short-term storage in the garage

Given the crummy weather, Tom proposed that we skip the Farmers Market today, and I was none too happy to oblige.  We plan to end the season at the last two Saturday markets with a “bang”: lots of fall spinach.  Both of our spinach plantings are looking great, so we want to highlight it.  Also still in the ground and doing nicely are Swiss Chard, radishes, and lettuce.

Final big harvest day

With more cold weather in the near-term forecast, I decided it was time to get the rest of the summer crops harvested.  As of this morning, still in the ground were four kinds of potatoes (Yukon Gold, German Butterball, Carola, and Caribe), three kinds of tomatoes (Brandywine, Purple Cherokee, and New Girl), four kinds of peppers (Ace, Islander, Lipstick, and Jimmy Nardello), and yellow and green summer squash (Goldrush and Raven).  Out to help were Lisel and Christopher, who wasn’t having his best farm day.

Chris is none too happy...

The reason for his discontent?  Well, the cold for sure.  The poor guy’s hands were mighty cold, and the socks we put over them in lieu of the mittens we left at home only frustrated him.  But the main reason for his dour mood was the unexpected, and startling, discovery of a Western Toad burrowed into the potato bed.  Looking at this creature, which he incongruously christened “Funny Froggy”, I don’t blame Chris one bit: this thing looked mean.  It wasn’t happy about being unearthed, and puffed itself up to quite a large size.  Startling, indeed!

Funny Froggy

Well, I jumped the gun on my assessment of the frost damage.  Upon further inspection this afternoon, it seems many of the tomatoes did get zapped by the cold temps, despite the cover.  The peppers and squash still looked okay, but a lot of the tomatoes looked wilted and dark.

I pulled a couple of bushels of green ones, and left probably a couple more bushels worth on the vines still under cover.  I’ll gather those tomorrow.  Guess it’s time to search for some green tomato recipes…

Row cover wasn't quite enough

One interesting thing I noticed about Tom’s squash plants, which were not covered: while many of the older leaves clearly couldn’t handle the frost and had died, it looked like the newer leaves came through fine.  Hmm.

Older leaves died

New ones survived

We had our first frost advisory last night.  Good for me I was paying attention.  Bad for me I didn’t pay attention until late in the evening.  As in at 10:00 pm.  So off I went to the farm to lay the row cover that should have been waiting ready to spread.  It wasn’t ready to spread, so I was out there until almost midnight getting the tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini covered.

Working in the dark isn’t that bad, especially if you use the car headlights.  I had them on bright, so I had no problem seeing what I was doing.  As I started working, I made a mental note to check them often so the battery wouldn’t run down.  About an hour later, I checked them.  They were dim.  Oh, oh.  Mind you, the farm is about 4 miles from the house.  It was 11:20 pm, and Lisel and the kids were all asleep.  Or, at least they should have been, but that’s another story.  In a bit of a panic, I tried starting the car.  It wouldn’t.  Hmm.  As I sat there calculating how long it would take to walk home, I decided to try starting it one more time.  Hurray!  It started!

I left the car running and finished my work.  I’m glad I did, because this morning, the thermometer showed a low temp of 24.8 degrees F.

24.8 degrees F on October 7th!

It looks like most of the plants survived.  I used a combination of 6 mil builder’s plastic and Agribon 19.  Here are some pics:

Tomatoes under cover

A few tomato vines got zapped

But most were fine

Zucchini, summer squash, and sweet peppers under cover

Peppers came through fine

Summer squash came through fine

Basil (which was not covered) did not