First Frost

It's been a busy fall, as I've obviously not posted much lately. I have to add a little today to wrap up the season.

Our first frost was in the first week or so of October, not terribly out-of-the-ordinary, though maybe a bit early. There were two mornings of frost in those days, but they were both quite light. I had the remaining basil, peppers, and tomatoes covered and they all survived just fine. I'm lucky to have the garden in a microclimate in the heat sink of the city and sheltered on the north by the house, on the west by the garage, and on the south by trees and the neighbor's house (which are about 20 feet away). The frost was certainly harder in other parts of the region.

The first real hard frost, though, was the morning of the 18th. Everything was more or less picked clean, so nothing was covered and the last bits of remaining basil was finished off by the frost. The only thing left was some jalapenos and bell peppers that never ripened. I picked them first thing in the morning and tossed the jalapenos into the freezer to store over the winter. The bell peppers are still fine for eating.

Last year we didn't have a frost like that until the middle of November, but I wasn't really hurt by it this year. Time to await the last frost in May 2009!