October 20, 2014
Today is the date of our first frost (zone 7b) and apparently this winter is supposed to be a doosey. However, we are still in the 40s at night (70s during the day) and I, for one, am THANKFUL! 🙂
Because of this, we are still able to harvest peas, tomatoes, peppers, and a few raspberries.
Other than fresh eating, the peas are frozen for later use.
We ran out of marinara/passata sauce this week so I made another batch with 2.5 bags of frozen tomatoes, picked earlier this summer.
Also, because we have not reached first frost, I have not had to:
- rip up the tomato patch including peppers, tomatoes, and marigolds
- harvest the rest of the sweet potatoes, which is good because I have NO CLUE where I am going to store all of those!
- cover any of my lettuces, spinach, or root crops that were planted late & will need protection
- cover my strawberry plants for the winter
And for all of this, I am thankful. I also see all of the work ahead of me and I am overwhelmed just thinking about it! I have spent the week getting out winter clothes for our family of eight. Not fun. Next week, I’m going to have to jump on my ‘prep the garden for the winter’ list.
The covered kale is really loving this cool weather. We have enjoyed many kale salads each night since not many of my spinach seeds sprouted and even less of my lettuce seeds. All is well. We love kale! 🙂 
(From the garden: kale, green beans, sweet potatoes, peppers (in the bean burger). Also made at home – whole wheat bread)
Are you able to continue harvesting? Check out what other gardeners are up to at Daphne’s Dandelions for her weekly Harvest Monday!
fyi: these pics are NOT from Nieto Photography. I took the pics from my husband’s camera this week & asked him to send them to me so I could post. He is so incredibly busy this time of year, he forgot to take his tag off of it 🙂
Gardening Without... 
Peas at this time of the year? Wow. And that passata looks great – I had bad luck with tomatoes this year and didn’t have a chance to make any, but that’s usually one of my first canning batches.
In NC, we can do peas in the spring & fall 🙂 Many of my neighbors think I’m crazy for pushing the limits like that but I’ve always gotten some type of harvest. They’re starting to come around 😉
Those peas look scrumptious. I love shell peas but they seem to take up so much room for the yield that I always end up going with the sugar snap peas instead. There is always next year!
I’ve actually never tried sugar snap peas…
I’m hoping the first frost will stay away for awhile too (I’m in 7b as well). My fall peas have just started producing, so I’m not ready for a frost. Your peas look fabulous!
Lovely harvests. And those peas look so yummy. You remind me that I should have picked my kale and frozen it before my vacation. Whoops. No time now. It is hardy though so I will have plenty of time later as long as we don’t get any early snows. The big leaves tend to break off when it snows.