River,

Oh, darn it. I was hoping for nice weather a bit longer for you up there in northern OK so your peppers could color up naturally while the plants were still upright and planted in the ground.

My uncle and I have both have had a lot of success with peppers coloring up pretty well on upside-down hanging plants in the past, so I'm hoping you'll have the same success as well.

So far, the worst we're expecting here is 42 degrees on Sunday night going into Monday morning, but I know from experience that a forecast of 42 degrees in November often ends up giving us a temperature quite a bit lower than that, so I'm expecting 34-36 So, I think either Saturday or Sunday I'll strip the plants yet again of everything that is harvestable size and just hope for the best.

At the present time, I don't think I'll cover up anything although I might change my mind and cover up the green beans although it might not be worth it this late in the year.

I agree that November tomatoes are mostly lacking in flavor. I picked some today and gave them to the chickens.

Dawn

The tomatoes that were pulled green and are ripening in the house don't have that nice summer flavor either. I had a jalapeno plant in my garden that I missed when I was pulling up peppers. I stripped it today and brought in 7 red jalapenos. I used the ripened tomatoes and made fresh salsa. None, those tomatoes have flavor...woo hoo.

I picked a few beans today but even those are not like they were a month ago. Some pods are almost empty. I think I am about ready to yank those up as well. I have left the ones I got from George and I am hoping to get them dry enough for a few seed. A few of the pods are starting to change color and dry, so maybe I will get a few.

I have a nice bed of romaine lettuce that we have been eating from and the same bed has several other lettuces, spinach and some chard. The others are not big enough to eat, but they have grown a lot with this warm weather this week. It has been perfect weather to work outside in a short sleeve shirt. Wouldn't it be nice if this was winter, and it just continued with this weather. I can take anything but the ice storms. Yuck.

My DH winterized the jet skiis today and we got them covered and put to bed for the winter.

Carol,

I'm glad the jet skis are tucked into their winter bed so they can hibernate for the winter. LOL

So far, everything else in the garden tastes fine, but the tomatoes aren't getting enough hours of sunlight and heat to develop their luscious summertime flavor. I'm toying with going ahead and starting to remove most of the remaining tomato plants (except maybe Tess' Land Race Currant and Sweet Million) because the flavor of the bigger tomatoes is just lacking.

This weekend is Love County's big Toy Run and Chili Cookoff so I've been trying to focus on the planning for that although I'd rather be out in the garden, but I have such a miserable cold that I think I'll miss the cookoff for the first time ever. Of course, that didn't stop me from going out and buying toys for the charity drive portion of the event. I think Saturday I'll be home keeping my cold germs away from the general population, and probably making the final picking of the green beans, winter squash, cukes, peppers and any remaining tomatoes. If I have the energy, I may even dig up the fall potatoes.

I think the arrival of the cold weather is about to pretty much shut down the garden's production even if it doesn't freeze on Sun., Mon., or Tuesday nights. Once the nights are in the low 40s. the garden really slows down to a snail's pace.

November has been spectacular here in Love County, with the high temps in the upper 70s most of the time (or even in the low 80s) and nights in the 50s or 60s. I doubt River's snowflakes will even think of coming this far south, but the cold winds and temperatures likely will get here by Sunday or Monday. I don't think we've had any rain this month, which is odd after the huge rainfall totals in October, but we've had massive amounts of fog.

Thanks to the November high temperatures, the garden has produced really well, but that is about to end, I think.

Dawn

I still have a few Sungold tomatoes every couple of days and they are still tasty. I want to remember that for next year to make sure I have cherry tomatoes planted to take me through the fall, because they don't seem to lose their flavor. Of course, I am only getting a few and the vines have had no care whatsoever for months now. I think if they were in the ground, instead of containers, I would probably be getting more.

I'm not the kind of gardener that you are Dawn, and every year I seem to learn a little more. I know I will not live long enough to learn it all, but I'm getting smarter. LOL I experiment a lot and I couldn't do that if I knew that it was my major food supply, but it has taught me a lot anyway....and there is always next year.