New England September 2014

[quote="NHGardener"]

Here is a pot of cherry tomatoes cooking down to sauce from tonight:

Now that is a full pot! It won't boil over with all that extra on top?

yolos....Yes, you understand correctly.  There is an extra step before single layer in freezer.
Its a single layer of the veggies on a sheet pan in the fridge.  Even if you dry with paper towels quite well, there is moisture on the veggies.  Staying in the fridge for a couple hours fixes that.  The less moisture, the better the frozen product.
Then you put them in the freezer to freeze individually.  Then bag and freeze them.

September 13 felt like November!

It got down to 37°F but now the temp is climbing and at 42°F. Next round is Thursday.

We saw the same show on sunday but looking up freezing in the Ball canning and preserving it said not to blanch peppers which  we were going to freeze. We did like the canning book said. Any thoughts?

Now that is a full pot! It won't boil over with all that extra on top?

LOL. Yes, but I wanted to snap a photo first. And then I rescued the tomatoes until it boiled down a little more. I guess when you cook tomatoes, they kind of expand before they contract.

Wow, I've got a lot of catching up to do. I missed Camp's B-Day (Happy Belated!!!) and all the harvesting going on. It was cold last night up my way (32) but yet no frost. It must have been right on the verge, though. "And so it begins..." indeed.



P.S. NHG, I haven't forgotten that you wanted a picture of my peppers. I've been straight out and haven't taken one yet, but I'll get one for you soon.

Don't stress, Molly! Glad you're back.

In past years our peppers, both green and red have been washed, seeds removed an split.
Dried and frozen quickly.
I dried in a dish towel and not completely.
This has worked well for us, although their not like off the plant.

Keep warm tonight, everyone!

Apparently there was a frost advisory here last night that I missed - wasn't there when I last checked the weather yesterday. Hope nothing got damaged. When I looked at the outdoor therm. around 6:30 a.m. it read 36.9. Hmm.

We should be getting warmer from here for a while yet, so no sense bringing in the butternut squash and dried beans at this point.

Edit: DOH!! Just walked down the yard and there was still frosted grass in the shady spots. We were hit. And all the butternuts have a nice brown patch on them now. This will mean no long-term storage, we'll have to have butternut squash for bfast, lunch & dinner.

We had bee club meeting last night and then I checked the Scotland vote just for kicks so didn't even think about checking the weather updates. But my property, which slopes downward on a north and east face, is the first to get frost if it's coming, and also seems to be a snow catcher.

Oh, that's too bad about your squashes, NHG.

DH & I were out yesterday for a few hours frantically trying to salvage what was salvageable, making calculated guesses as to what might be able to stay out, etc.

We certainly got a freeze here last night. It's still frosty outside, so I'm not too hopeful for the stuff that didn't get covered, but I've got to run to work now, so no time to check under the covers.

How did everyone else fare?

So far so good here, I covered near everything and temps went to 34F. I will know more this afternoon when I get home.

NHGardener wrote:... my property, which slopes downward on a north and east face, is the first to get frost if it's coming, and also seems to be a snow catcher.

ayuh,  exact same set up for my lot.  But no frost here this time - only got down to 50ish.  Strange coz the 2 previous nights were in the high 40's with prediction of low/mid 50's.  It's tonight that I'm more concerned about.  Mid 40's predicted but that could mean mid/hi 30'sin my SFG. 

I'm thinking of throwing plastic over the cukes coz I love them. And maybe the Super Beef Steak maters coz I still haven't got one.
The squashes were already going down from cold, PM & lack of water so I'll pick the remaining fruit today.  Everything else can handle the cold without cover.

If I cover the cukes, do you think I need to pick the fruits first? 

CC

CC - are your cucumbers already ripe? I don't think I'd pick them if they weren't ripe. If you have them covered, I think it's the vine that matters, so they keep getting that nutrition.

NOAA isn't taking the hazardous forecast off of here yet - there still may be a chance for frost tonight too. 

I think my butternuts may do okay. I pulled several off the vine and they're sun basking. I'll pull more off later (they're prickly/need gloves). The cucumbers are probably over, but I haven't seen new cukes on them anyway lately. Not sure what to do about the dried beans, I think I may throw something over them. That about wraps it up for me.

Anxious for everything to die off now so I can continue working on putting cardboard down and either chips or brush or something on top to keep the weeds at bay for next summer. Also anxious to double the material on this year's raised rows and make a few new ones. The asparagus bed is ridiculously weedy right now - bleh. Just wait till I get my hands on that...

I'm reading that wood guys are selling their woodchips to the power companies for $$$ since the power companies burn them. Had 2 trees taken out here last week and I asked the guy about woodchips and he said he sells his to commercial places. That's why I'm thinking instead of going with chips, I may just haul some of the material from our brush/burn piles and seeing how well they crunch under foot. HMM. Pre-chips.

I would think that if the tree guy took down your trees and chipped them, those are still your trees, and not his to sell to the power company or pellet makers..

Oops, sorry, he didn't chip our trees, he just took them down (hanging over house) and we're cutting them up for firewood. But I thought maybe he was up to his ears in chips since he does this for a living, but no, they're not that easy to get (for free anyway). He suggested putting a sign at the driveway "chips wanted" for the Asplundh guys, but I had asked Asplundh 3 times when they were in the neighborhood last summer (once on my own property) and they said sure, and then never delivered, so I'm jaded on that idea.

camprn wrote:I would think that if the tree guy took down your trees and chipped them, those are still your trees, and not his to sell to the power company or pellet makers..

Hmm...good point.  The guy that took down our tree & chipped it sold it back to us (Mom) for $15.

Cukes are ripe but most are still pickle sized.  I'll leave those on.

CapeCoddess wrote:

camprn wrote:I would think that if the tree guy took down your trees and chipped them, those are still your trees, and not his to sell to the power company or pellet makers..

Hmm...good point.  The guy that took down our tree & chipped it sold it back to us (Mom) for $15.

Cukes are ripe but most are still pickle sized.  I'll leave those on.

I would consider the $15 the chipping fee, aye.

The forecast temperature for tonight is 37F. I am not covering.

Just picked 4 nice heads of cabbage, now off to the kitchen to start a new crock of sauerkraut fermenting. This is exciting because this is the first year I've grown cabbage. Can't wait to see how the sauerkraut turns out using my own fresh cabbage.

Lyndeeloo, When did you plant the seeds or seedlings? They are beautiful.

They look beautiful, lyndeeloo.

A warm time ahead!

I sure hope so, RJ, because I just planted asparagus.  I'm hoping it will go on for a month.