It looks great. I am in the northwest of Springfield area and we have sun today too, but it is 58.

I envy you the lettuce! I need to build a cold frame. Our local gardening guru says it can take temps down to 22°. You may have salads all the way to Christmas!

Last year I had salad greens planted in a huge tree pot, one of thos three feet across that big trees come from the nursery in, and I kept it going until the week before Christmas. I threw a blanket over it a few nights but it was just out in the open with no plastic at all. It got really cold just before Christmas and we were going to Mexico on a cruise, so I didn't try to keep it alive after that. I think with a good cold frame, and a willingness to throw an extra cover on it on really cold nights that you could keep it going all year, most years.

My future plan is to build a high-tunnel and maybe some low tunnels inside that or at least extra cover inside on really cold nights. Those cold weather veggies don't need a lot of protection. I have plans for a lot of things that I just haven't done yet. LOL

Very nice. I had 'very nice' here too until Tues. night. (sigh)

Some of my cannas froze and are now a lovely dead shade of brown, but some of the ones under the pecan tree and under the castor oil bean plants are still green.

It is a gorgeous day here, too. We always have a gorgeous and warm week after the first frost hits. Last night's overnight low was 20 degrees WARMER than Tues. night's freezing temps.

I don't know what your forecast looks like for the next week, but ours looks good through at least Thanksgiving.

Dawn

I guess, I will have to "get around to it" and make me one of them cold frame kind of things. I would LOVE to have fresh lettuce... but haven't had any in my gardens since the late 70's, when I had a home made cold frame.

Moni

Beautiful! I love seeing green things when it's chilly out!

My wellhouse garden, filled with English peas, green, onions & garlic, and cabbages, is my favorite at the moment because it's so lush and green. I love walking around in it, just soaking up the greenness.

*contented sigh*

Diane,

I love seeing green things when it is chilly out too. I bet the wellhouse garden looks great.

Have y'all not had freezing temps there yet?

In drought years (so, not this year) we plant winter rye grass around the house and other buildings to help protect them from wildfire. Because of that, I am fairly used to having a green lawn in winter when everything else is brown and I guess I take it for granted.

When friends or neighbors drop by during the winter in those drought years, they always get so excited about the lush green rye grass lawn. LOL

I didn't plant rye grass this year because in a wet winter it grows too fast and has to be mowed about every other day or it gets too tall to mow.

And, I guess I should emphasize that in a bad wildfire year, green grass will slow down an approaching wildfire, but it won't stop it from reaching your home because even green grass will burn (and it burns hotter because it has high levels of oxygen). We just hope that the green grass slows down an approaching wildfire long enough to let the firefighters get here in time to save the house. We've never had a wildfire get closer to our home than about 200 to 300 yards....but it makes me nervous to see one burning towards us.

Dawn

I think we've briefly been to freezing but, living on the side of a hill protects us a big as the frost doesn't settle as easily. We even have a gorgeous tomato plant in the wellhouse garden not looking bothered in the least at any of our frosts. I'll make it a point to go out and snap a pic of it today. It even has a couple of blossoms - or did last I looked.

I'll link below to my blog with pics of last night's harvest from the kitchen garden. Even the summer squash is still producing.

Diane,

Great harvest! Before my tomato plants froze a couple of nights ago they were covered in blooms too and lots of little fruit, but of course I knew nothing would come of that this late in the year.

Poor Bert and Ernie. LOL

The wood elves sure are growing up fast. They don't stay little long.

And.....just you wait.....you'll become a mother-in-law like so many of the rest of us in the next few years once your boys reach marrying age....daughter-in-laws are such a precious gift!

I don't want to know about the crime scene tape either....

Dawn

Soonergrandmom,
I like the cold frame. I like the loonks of it. I'm going to experiment with growing some things all winter if I can get them to germinate this late. Need to get a few more seeds also. The two I have now are built a little different than yours. Being that I have manure I can't apply to the garden going to pile it around the wood sides on the outside. Then cover it with mulch. Hopefully that will insulate and warm it some on cold nights. I've had some say they've had certain greens survive down to the single digits. Another project I have on the menu.

Diane great pictures. Love the kitten. My cats are getting long in the tooth. And pictures of fresh veggies are always nice.

Glad some are still enjoying their harvests. My garden is getting closer to ready for winter hibernation. Planted half of the garlic yesterday. Got called out to work on my vacation and fighting a cold or would of got finishted . So heading out shrtly to finish. Then cover with leaves and mulch on top. Jay

Jay, the coldframe is very temporary and a little embarassing. My DH built the raised box for me and we have intentions of putting a real cover on it probably with plexiglass panels. The bed is 4x12 and the clear stuff is 12 feet by 26 inches I think. Since it is about $30 a sheet, I wanted to make sure it was what I wanted before I fixed it plus I just got busy on other things.

The part on top doesn't fit the bed and is something I made to use on the ground. The metal part is one of those small indoor exercise trampolines that we just cut in half. We left the legs on and the PVC pipe just slides over the leg to hold it in place. The center is just 1/2 inch PVC looped over to help hold the bigger PVC pipe in place because it isn't rigid enough. The plastic is a piece of 6 ml construction plastic left over from another job but it will last as long as the lettuce. The PVC is only 10 feet long so there is a board holding the tramp curve at the 10 foot point and there's another 2 feet of bed not under the hoop.

So you see, it is a totally temp project made with left-overs and is not wide enough or long enough for the bed.

I built a high tunnel at my old house using the same principles though. I had a full size tramp frame that I used for the end hoops then bolted 10 foot aluminum pipe to the small projections that come out from the frame and fit down into the legs of the tramp. We built a frame on the ground with landscape timber which was held in place with rebar. Then we drilled holes using a door knob cutter in the landscape timber and set the ends of the arch into them. This held everything together and made it sturdy. At this point you have 2 metal arches and four aluminum pipes which make the structure. Then you can use thin PVC to go across every 4 feet or so.

I could see this in my head and my DH and son just couldn't understand what I was talking about. I remember taking them outside and putting two tramp pieces together and lifting the arch over my head. LOL As soon as I lifted it up and there was plenty of room to walk under it they understood and helped me build it. I set it over my garden area, but still had to bring in the good stuff to improve the soil. I had built it over one raised bed that had tomatoes in it, but all the rest of it was just planted in the ground.

Lessons learned. 10 x 13 was not large enough and I could just have easily used longer pipe or connected two 10s together to give me a 20 foot length because the metal made it strong enough. The natural way that the tramp fits together (without cutting) gives you two side rails a few feet off the ground, then two top rails overhead. I needed to add another support at the exact center to force all of the water to run off. This would be easy to do, but I just didn't realize the need until I lived with it through some heavy rains.

If I do it again, I will probably build a permanent structure on the bottom and start the arch at a higher point. Not only does this give you more stand up room near the edges of the tunnel, but you could attach a movable curtain to a wood frame which you could open and close at will by rolling it up from the ground to the bottom of the arch (or dropping it down for that matter). Mine was so small that opening the door on the front and using an automatic opening device on the back vent was enough because I only used in in cooler months. Doing it again, I would be making it to use year round because I want it for tomatoes in summer so side vents would help with air flow.

After I took the plastic off of my high tunnel, a lady stopped and knocked on my door and asked if I would like to sell my greenhouse. She had no idea that we had made it out of a throw away trampoline. It looked nice.

I never stop dreaming. I have a high tunnel growing on the left side of my brain and a greenhouse growing in the right and some day I am going to get both of the built....if I ever finish all these other projects. Right now I am off to build some shelving in the storm shelter.

Carol,

Like you, I have both a high tunnel and a greenhouse in my head, but I don't know when we'll get around to building them. Since Tim joined the local VFD in 2004, we never have time to do anything because the fire dept. eats up all his time and a lot of mine too. When they re-elected him Chief for another two-year term this spring (and I knew they would because he's a really great chief), my reaction was "Great! Congratulations!", but inside I was thinking "Darn it. No tunnel or greenhouse for 2 more years." LOL I'll have them one of these years though.

Dawn

Carol said: "I have a high tunnel growing on the left side of my brain and a greenhouse growing in the right"

I have moss growing on the north side of my brain and dust bunnies growing on the south side.

I have my little greenhouse have not yet gotten to play with tunnels. Hubby has promised, though, to set up some framing on the wellhouse garden so I can experiment with plastic-ing it in over winter... one of these years.

Diane