Garden: toast

Well, pretty much. A good hard frost hit us Friday night.

It was a surprise – the weather service predicted 36 degrees, then issued a frost warning (didn't know there was such a thing) in late afternoon. We'd been at the Friends of the Deer Park Library book sale all day and didn't know about it until 6 or so. I told C. about it, then promptly went back to the Civil War, and forgot all about the garden. I do get involved in a book. I finished "The Black Flower," by Howard Bahr, at dusk, and wandered outside, wondering where C. had gone. Duh. She was draping plastic sheeting over the tomatoes.

I put on a headlamp, dug out more plastic, clothespins and all the spare sheets, and covered tomatoes until midnight or so. Hard work on uneven ground. We have three 40-foot rows – and a few plants here and there – of indeterminate tomatoes, and those plants get 6 or 7 feet tall.

We had a fire in the wood stove that night.

So Saturday we pulled off the plastic and the sheets, and checked the damage. Some of the covered plants, especially at the bottom of the garden, were hit hard. Others were barely touched. The pole beans were uncovered and took only minor damage. As usual, it's weirdly random.

Then the fall monsoons started. It's been gray, chilly and rainy since. The remaining tomatoes aren't going to ripen much now, and another freeze is forecast for Friday. Might as well accept it.

We finished picking the last of the tomatoes today – six buckets full. The green ones are spread out on the island in the other kitchen. They'll ripen over the next couple of weeks, probably. The yellow, orange and red ones are over here. Wait – I forgot to get the toms on the fence on the little dog yard. We'll get those, and the tomatillos, squash and corn tomorrow. Then we'll pick the giant cabbages, and launch into sauerkraut production.

C. is making salsa right now. She makes really good, mild salsa. I asked for her recipe, and she says she just wings it. I pressed for details, for you, my three readers, and here you go: Take a shitload of tomatillos (Exactly how many is that? A bunch. A bunch? A lot. All you have. Like... a gallon-jar full? Two, maybe... and the tomatillos should be mostly yellow, not green. They're sweeter that way.), three big onions, maybe a dozen medium-sized paste tomatoes, six Ancho peppers without seeds, four big cloves of garlic. Cut everything in half (chop the garlic), coat with oil and roast in batches in a 450-degree oven. (For how long? Until it's done. Blackened on the edges? Browned.) Drain off some of the liquid. Pulse everything up (not too fine!) in a fancy red food processor. Add lemon or lime juice, vinegar, salt, cilantro, cumin. Makes 10 pints to can in a water bath. And since the canner holds only nine jars, that leaves one to eat with chips or crackers while you clean up the huge mess this makes in the kitchen. (That's pretty good. More specific measurements would be helpful, though. Oh. Oh, well.)

So we're closing the gardening season down. Next, we'll get the winter's wood supply in. I'm already remembering those 90-degree days – just a couple of weeks ago – fondly.

Two eggs today.