Last week Tuesday night we saw overnight temperatures in the mid-30’s. I chanced it and didn’t cover anything, but Thursday night when a low of 27 was predicted I drug out the bedsheets. All of the container plants I could manage got drug into the garage. The rest were draped with bath towels and blankets. Madeline’s edible landscape project got covered with black fabric I use for a photo shoot backdrop. I’m just not ready to give up having all of those fresh herbs right by the front door, and the gem marigolds are still really pretty.
Certain things got harvested. All of the melons. The bell peppers, the jalapenos. Any tomato that had even started to blush.
And then it was time to cover what we could in the garden. But there aren’t enough sheets to cover our entire garden – so what to cover? It was time to pick favorites.
The Amish pasta tomatoes got top priority, because I’m needing a whole lot more of their slow roasted goodness for my freezer yet. Chile peppers similarly ranked high, once again for their roasting value. The celery got a sheet. It’s the first time we’ve grown celery, but we haven’t yet harvested any. And then I started doling out the few remaining sheets to the best looking tomato plants. It was a good thing, because that frost came just as predicted.
Today’s high? According to my car, it was 90 degrees at 5:00 this afternoon. From Carharts to shorts again in 2 days. Gotta love Iowa weather.
I grew some Amish Paste tomatoes this year and I’m really digging them. Mine were fairly small and that meant more work to cut them up, but they seemed to give up a lot of sauce in them. Are yours small, compared to Romas?
Matt – My AP’s are about 3 inches long. I like them because I just cut them in half, scoop out the seeds and I’m done. They’re proportionally less seedy and more meaty than bigger tomatoes. The bigger ones I cut into quarters or eigths to get at all the seeds. I always scoop out seeds to not only keep them out of the finished product but to cut down on the time it takes to cook down the tomatoes.
“Gotta love Iowa weather” Do I have to? I know! Let’s move to the pacific northwest!