Hi yama... I live in zone 6 so I can't say what they do with eggplant there. I did want to say that I have lived in the Northeast all my life and really enjoy the winter and the fall. Not as much now that I am older as I did when I was younger though. [g] I lived in Florida for awhile and we moved home, one reason was that we really missed the changing seasons. It is not easy sometimes getting used to something new. As far as the garden goes. I just finished closing up the garden for the winter yesterday and I was so relieved..lol. I am so intensely involved in the garden when it is growing season, that I actually look forward to a vacation from gardening. :-) I can also focus on other things that need my attention. I hope you will come to find things about the winter season that you can enjoy and look forward to and not be afraid of it. Get yourself a good warm coat and hat and gloves and enjoy all that crisp winter air!! :-) pm2

I have used row cover in a limited way for a number of years but had never bought a large quantity until this year. I had used it to cover young plants in the Spring when we had an unexpected cool spell. I covered things early, then before I went to bed I filled 2 liter bottles with hot water and placed them under the row cover. Potato plants that were not covered got nipped and the covered crops didn't, so I feel like they worked. I grew some eggplant under row cover one year as an insect protection and it was OK except something saw it blowing in the wind and decided to jump through it and made several big holes. I think it was cats. Last year was the true test though. I didn't have much row cover left last year and didn't get new until March. When the cold temps threatened in the Fall last year I had some very large hot pepper plants that were covered with peppers but not yet mature. I sort of made a fence around the area with tomato cages and wrapped the entire thing with row cover. I pinned it to the cages, and in several cases had to pinch up areas to cover up holes. Then I threw a piece of greenhouse film over the top. It didn't reach down the sides, and the sides had only row cover. I laughed at how bad it looked and it was just before Halloween. The peppers stayed pretty and green until after Thanksgiving with just that little bit of cover. This year I had plenty of row cover so we made hoops and covered the hoops with row cover. I grew summer squash and broccoli under cover to keep it insect free until the squash started to bloom and needed pollinators. The squash was touching the row cover by the time I removed it. The one that I bought this year is not the most lightweight one, but is the second thickness sold. I think it is supposed to let through 85 percent of the light. That seems to be enough in my garden. When I planted winter squash, I put the row cover over the bed and left it totally covered until they bloomed. This was the second crop in this bed and by then the sun was so strong and the temp so high, that I just pulled up the side of the row cover so pollinators could go in, but left the top to aid in protection from the sun. I put up some long legs and covered my peppers that were burning up from the sun. The original intent of row cover was to lay on top of the plants (float), but that is my least favorite way to use it. I like it suspended above the plants and not touching them at all. In the Eliot Coleman books he uses it inside high tunnels, but suspends it above the plants on wickets made of wire. Since I find it increasingly difficult to garden in the summer, I plan to experiment more with cool weather growing this year. The problem is that it stays too hot in Summer to get Fall crops in the ground in time to produce, so I am hoping that I can move the planting dates to a later date, then extend the growing season with a little protection from the first cold weather. I know I can do this with lettuce, Chinese cabbage, and spinach which I have grown in containers, but I hope to plant in the ground this year, or at least raised beds, and try a few new things. So what I am saying is that although row cover isn't cheap, I find it very useful for many different purposes. In Oklahoma, some years are wet, some are dry. Some of the time Spring is warm, then turns cold again. In Fall, we almost always have cold weather for a few days, then Fall weather again for weeks. Row cover helps to bridge the gap when the weather changes quickly. It's not like having a greenhouse, but it offers a few degrees of protection from the cold and apparently cuts enough of the suns rays during the hotter weather to help the plants survive. If you garden on a limited budget and have a garden only to try and supplement the food budget, then it may be too expensive to experiment with. I have been able to use mine for more than one year, but that is not a sure thing because it is very thin. It is 107 here right now with no relief in sight. While I was missing winter pretty bad my husband read an article to me that said to expect winter to be wetter and colder than usual with ice storms and power outages. It sure is hard to think about checking generators for winter when the temp is 107. May the COOL be with you.

I love winter but this year we broke all records for snowfall. We have had it all - the bitterly cold, the wind and the snow and I went through all this with a broken window in my attic which meant my house always had a chill no matter how hard my furnace tried to keep up. Thankfully that window was replaced a few days ago and the temp in my house has remained steady. Didn't help that my thermostat was next to the attic stairs where the draft would hit it. So glad my 46 year old furnace is one of the good ones. More snow this week and cold temps.

Just went thru and looked at the wonderful wind chimes made. Jen such a pretty blue to shine in the sun.. Tammy sent a pretty butterfly floating in the air, and garden flags. Never have to many of those. Susan's wide eyed owl is crafters dream. Amy got her craft on with a poring tea pot. Melinda used the always beautiful dried flowers and drift wood. Margos flower pot hanger with bees and butterflys a super cute idea. Of course my frog is dancing on my deck with a gentle sound. Hate for the month to end. But May is here . Yea