in the garden right now

We have been having a really nice fall, now that the weather has decided to turn. It was HOT all through October, but now things have settled down, we've been getting a lot more rain, and the days are usually in the high 70's. Our garden has responded to the beautiful weather, and we've been having a great harvest. The past couple of days have dipped down into frosty territory overnight and we've been covering things at night to protect them from frost.

Here are our tomatoes all starting to turn yellow Saturday. We picked them all Sunday night so they wouldn't get mushy with the frost. They filled the bottoms of 2 large boxes. I am so pleased with this amount of tomatoes from a drought year. If they all ripen together, I will make salsa. I never thought I'd be canning salsa in December, but I'm willing to do it. We made some atomic jalapeno salsa 2 weekends ago, because we had jalapenos coming out our ears, but it is so hot that I am afraid of it. I want some salsa I can eat! Our bell, banana and jalapeno peppers continue to produce well, along with our onions and cilantro. Definitely time for salsa.

Our peas have blossoms and our green beans are going crazy. I have already blanched and frozen a whole gallon freezer bag full. We have been protecting the green beans with layers of old sheets so that we can keep harvesting. Our peas should be fine as they are pretty cold-tolerant. The broccoli has already produced some beautiful heads and continues to do well even in the frost--broccoli is a perfect cold-weather plant and last year it produced well into February, as did our lettuce and spinach.

The pride of our garden right now is the marigolds. We planted them back in July, hoping they would fend off some of the squash bugs that were haunting our zucchini and squash. The marigolds took off when the weather cooled down, and it's so fun to look out the window and see them shining merrily in the sun.

Jed has also become quite the fixture in the garden. He loves to be outside and frequently brings me his flip-flops, asking to go and play. He loves to throw the dirt over the fence, race his little yellow car around, and play in the leaves. He likes to watch me weed, and he'll usually come and sit by me and drive his matchbox cars in the dirt while I'm digging around.

I am so grateful for these beautiful fall days! We have spent so much of the summer hiding from the heat, either up to our necks in the pool or being bored to death in the house. It's so nice to get outside, run around and enjoy our garden.