Green Tomatoes and Peas

We had fried green tomatoes for lunch on Tuesday (Nov. 18). I think that the reason they are common in the South is that the tomatoes are still growing. I picked them because the weather was getting cold enough the vines were, finally, starting to wilt. There were a bunch of tiny tomatoes not worth slicing and lots of blooms too.

On the same day I also picked the first three pea pods from the fall bunch. They were very good, although the peas were kind of tiny. They were all sweet and delicious. They seem to have survived the cold a little better, but it got really cold later in the week and I haven't checked on them again. I would absolutely love it if we could get a fall crop of peas.

So, this week I also got my first seed catalog for next years garden, I'm not sure how they timed it to show up on exactly the day that the rest of my garden wilted from cold.

Tomatoes

Unbelievably, my tomato plants still have blossoms and green tomatoes. Gardening in the south is crazy. I put in another batch of peas (not Territorial) at the beginning of October (I think). I didn't get really good germination only about 4 of 12, but there are blossoms on the plants that grew. So, maybe we'll enjoy some winter peas.

Salvaged Potato

Ian discovered a potato sprout in our compost pile the other day. He was excited about it (and so was I), so we planted it in our garden. We'll see how it does. I put a box out there around it today so that we can pile the soil up deeper—a temporary 2-story enclosure. It seems a little late for starting to plant something, but the fall weather has been great and potatoes seem like something that could survive some cold.

Roots

I picked a bunch of carrots. They weren't very good, but we roasted them and they were delicious.

We've had an explosion of some sort of burrowing rodent throwing up hills all through our backyard. I think that they must have gotten to the garden, because a couple of carrots seemed to have been eaten at the bottom.

Something also got my broccoli plants. I think it was most likely the dog, but I didn't actually see her do it.

Fall Planting

I put in broccoli and lettuce today–starts from Julie.

Tiny Corn

We picked our first two tiny ears of corn today. One was perfectly ripe and one was not quite. But Ian and Molly loved it!

Tomatoes & Beans

We had an early harvest of tomatoes, thanks to a well timed Miracle Grow application and some early hot weather. Here's Ian with the first tomato of the season.While he wasn't quite as exuberant about the peas as I thought he would be, he has made up for it in his uninhibited enthusiasm for tomatoes.

The green beans were kind of overshadowed by the peas. While there have been a couple of very thin beans start develop. They've been eaten—by birds or squirrels I think. I put in a few more seeds where the plants hadn't survived the overshadowing of the peas and they came up within a couple of days. So, hopefully I haven't missed bean season and hopefully it's not too hot.