Fall tomatoes

We are supposed to have our first real freeze tonight. Last week we had a drop down to 34, and lost the newer pumpkin vines but nothing else. Early tomorrow the low is forecasted to be 32, so it will probably be a little lower here. I got up early and picked tomatoes, peppers, sugar snap beans, some small pumpkins, and lots of kentucky wonder beans. I took all the tomato and pepper plants off their stakes and laid them down so that maybe some will survive the freeze. All of the broccoli has been maturing too, and I've had to pick five bunches already before they start to flower. It looks like I'll be blanching peas, shelling beans and making lots of broccoli soup this week.

Fall Vegetable Report:

The Porter and Viva Italia tomatoes really started to produce well, but it was impossible to gauge the taste of anything with all the cool and rainy weather we had this fall. Hardly any of the tomatoes ripened outside at all.

The Chile peppers and Jimmy Nardello sweet peppers produced well. Ditto on the ripening. The jalapenos were kind of wimpy.

The cucumbers, luffa, zuchinni, yellow crookneck, hubbard squash and tomatillos all performed miserably. The cucumbers went moldy and fungusy and petered out early.

Fairytale pumpkin was a huge (47.2 lb) success. I won't grow the Jack be Little pumpkins again because the vines are full size and take up too much of my space just to be ornamental. The cheese pumpkin was a slower performer than the fairytale, and the one good specimen rotted when I brought it in the house. Small sugar did okay, but had scanty production.

Volunteer watermelon plants grew well, but the fruit rotted in the rain.

The dill, parsley and other leafy herbs look great. The basil has even held out well.

It was TERRIFIC weather for the peas. I will definitely grow Sugar Snap Peas again. They performed amazing and tasted great. The dwarf gray sugar had a bitter taste, and Wando must be longer maturing because they are so far behind everything else.

Kentucky wonder was very prolific, but I didn't pick it early enough to use as green beans. They were too heavy to use with the woven fence that I bought. Pole beans need a cattle panel or something heavy duty. Bush Lake Beans had much lower productivity, and long maturation than the Contender beans which I would definitely grow again.