Dawn,
My garden has been tucked in and put to bed, covered, mulched, and babied as much as possible.

I know I'm going to loose some things, well, that I hadn't planned on being able to save anyway, but the tomatos and other veggies in my pup tent greenhouse are still doing well with no problems, and some of the cold weather veggies I've started, such as Great Lakes lettuce, etc, are sprouting and I'm hoping will go the distance.

It was actually HOT in there yesterday. But what I've done in anticipation of the really cold weather I know is coming, is to spray a strip of the Visquane along the bottom with black plastic Krylon spray paint to act as sort of a solar collector, (if we ever get much more solar to collect.

That's about all I can do. I hope everyone manages to cover or harvest as much of their produce as possible.
Now, it's going to be time for garden clean up. Pulling spent plants and tossing them in the compost pile, etc.

Barbara

My compost pile grew today because I added all my squash vines after I had harvested a bag of almost mature squash. I am encouraged though because the butternut I harvested earlier has now hardened on the outside like it should have done before I picked it. I will cook one of the spaghetti squash and see if it has good taste. If so, maybe I will try to keep them for awhile. If not, we will chalk it up to experience.

I also pulled a few beets and we had beets and beet greens, fried green tomatoes, baked sweet potato, and some leftover jalapeno cornbread muffins. I told DH it was vegetarian tonight because I watched him it a double, bacon, cheeseburger for luch and that was enough meat for all day.

I picked beans and the last of the peppers and removed all of the cages from the pepper plants but haven't pulled them yet. Pulled the okra and started pulling up the cowpeas. All I covered was a bed of very young greens which I had planned to build a small hoop house to cover, but didn't get it done. Maybe next week.

Barbara,

I went out and harvested what I could today, and covered the beans and cukes, hoping to keep them producing at least one more week because they have lots of little beans and little cukes. I don't know what will happen here....might have frost or might not. We're in the 'iffy' zone.

We had a high of 71 today and clear, sunny skies with light wind. The wind has pretty much stopped, the sky is still clear and that 71 degrees is a distant memory--it is now 52 degrees and falling fast.

I'll be surprised if we don't go at least to 38 here. In a 'normal' year (if there is such a thing) we'll average one almost-freezing night a week from mid-Oct through mid-Nov, when the first hard freeze generally arrives. So far, we're right on track....one almost-freezing night last week, and now one due to arrive tonight. However, our daytime highs (until today) have been averaging 10-15 degrees below normal, so I've been expecting that early frost.

Even if we have a hard freeze and lose everything, I don't normally clean out my garden until we're consistently having very cold nights and days......there's too many snakes slithering around as long as the days are marginally warm. Usually, we're pretty much snake-free by December and I can clean out the garden to my heart's content without running into a snake.

Dawn

It's not yet light, but I'm sure we had hard frost, at least in patches, here. We worked bringing a lot of things in, and last night, just before bed, I threw tarps over a couple of things. At 4:45 AM what was under a tarp looked good, and whatever wasn't had ice on it. Our porch thermometer read 37. But Tahlequah City Airport reported 30 F.

George

Low of 29 here in Dewey.

A chilly 37 in Bowlegs. Very heavy, cold dew, but no frost that I could see.

Illene and George hate to hear it. Hope some survived. I picked 13 maters and a few peppers yesterday that survived last weekend. Found a 13 ounce fully ripe KB that survived. Pulling everything so I can work the garden. JD

George and Ilene, Oh, that is just too cold. So, did anything survive uncovered (or covered)?

Our temperature did drop to 38 as I expected. Last night the local TV station said only "44 for the towns and falling into the 30s with patchy frost for the rural, outlying areas", and into the upper 30s we fell.

We had a cold, heavy dew but I didn't see any signs of the threatened patchy frost. We did have a light wind (around 4 to 7 mph overnight) and that would have helped keep patchy frost from settling on anything.

Despite a bunch of cold nights, my garden still lives. If the weather forecast is to be believed, it should have another week or so before we face another prospective frost here. This morning, the NWS radio was blathering on about possible frost somewhere sometime this week but I didn't want to hear it, so I tuned it out.

Jay, What a nice surprise to find a KB that had survived all the cold!

Dawn

I only covered one bed last night, but of course I had already harvested everything I could and pulled a lot of plants. The Mesonet in the town nearest me said we went to 32, the one north of me says 33. When I first got up and looked out the window, I thought I was looking at frost. Guess it was just heavy dew because everything still looks just fine. Temps are in low 60's and the sun is shining. I think everything out there could have made it another week, but you never know for sure. I have seen this in previous years though, when temps all around us were freezing and we didn't even get a frost. I still think the lake protects us somewhat. A few years ago I had a conversation with a commercial farmer whose gardens were just above the shoreline of the lake. He told me that he got as much as two weeks longer in the fall than others did.

Well, it's too early to tell for some things. The tomato plants and most of the flowers look like they might be OK. It got my pumpkin plants though, and the bushel basket gourd but not the darning egg gourd. Really seemed to hit kind of spotty. Mesonet said 29 and so did my thermometer outside on the wall, so I don't doubt, but I'm surprised things look as good as they do. I really have nothing left to pick, anyway, so it can do whatever it wants I guess. Today warmed quickly and I had to take off my jacket as I dug in the soil and made places to plant the new plants I bought. Time will tell. If it was enough to make the leaves fall, guess I'll be watching for those multiple leaf bags out on my neighbors' lawns next weekend! LOL I wasn't able to get them all chopped up last year and so just buried them under a layer of soil in some of the beds. Had to dig into one today, to plant my rosemary, and do you know, all those leaves are STILL intact? We bought a chipper/shredder at a garage sale this summer, so all the leaves I get this fall are getting chopped, including the hollyhock, sunflower and Jerusalem artichoke stalks!

I picked my tomatoes and peppers and pulled pepper and okra plants and then this am didn't see frost(But didn't go out early) The tomatoe plants weren't severely hurt but may have had a touch of frost. We live on a hill though and so often escape the first two or three frosts that hit the valley a 1/2 mile away.

The important thing for me is that the cold season stuff looks fine and we had a beautifully sunny day from dawn til dusk. Not warm, but sunny. So grow, napa cabbage and daikon radish.