It's Pumpkin Time/The First Frost

Welcome back.

The weather has been very summer like over the last week or so.  The temperatures have been right around 80 degrees the last two or three days.  However, the weather can vary tremendously this time of the year, and it has.  We had our first frost just 10 days ago on September 19th.  The temperature dipped to 30 degrees and the result was just a light frost.

Luckily, I covered a few remaining plants that I wanted to save.   I still have some tomatoes and peppers on the vine.  I try to protect the tomatoes as long as possible, since I will have to wait many months for next year's crop once a hard frost puts an end to the growing season.  That's a long time to wait for tomato lovers.

The old expression of frost on the pumpkin rang true:

Frosty Morning - Tomatoes and Peppers Covered

Speaking of pumpkins, I recently harvested those and my "manure pile" gourds.  You may recall that last fall I discarded some gourds on a pile of composted manure.  Quite a few sprouted this spring, so I allowed them to grow and the results were pretty good.  See my post of  May 23, 2014 for more details (http://dansgardening.blogspot.com.br/2014/05/garden-updatenice-red-winged-blackbird.html).

Overall, the pumpkins and gourds did well.  The pumpkin varieties I planted this year were Big Max, Connecticut Field, Jack O' Lantern, and Jack Be Little miniature pumpkins.

Since the above photos don't show the gourds and mini pumpkins very well, below is a photo of some of them on our dining room table:

Now that the growing season is winding down, I am starting to start the process of cleaning up the garden in preparation for next year.  So far, the only clean up I've done is where the potatoes were planted.  I removed the vines and the worst of the weeds before rototilling, which I did about a week ago:

The Potato Patch Ready For Rototilling

The Last of the Wildflowers

Finally, a few photos from my home of the fall foliage.  It is shaping up to be a very colorful year. On our hill, which is at an elevation of 1500 ft, the colors are close to peak:

Until next time.