Wow!!! That's a bummer!!! I guess I am lucky, then. We had frost 2 nights in a row this past week. I left all my containers outside, fully open...except for 4 containers, 1 with cucumbers growing, 2 with amaranth and 1 with another tender plant, which I put in my unheated garage. As far as I can tell I didn't lose anything...we had frost on the cars and temps around 28 degrees. My game plan next year is to segregate the hardy plants from the tenders, and, when I do several varieties in one container, make sure they are all tender or all hardy. This way I'll know which containers to bring into the garage once sprouts appear. This year I planted nearly all frost hardy plants and that worked well as all I had to do is open containers up some on hot days and make sure the containers stayed nicely watered. Now that nearly all my containers are open allt he way though, I have to water much more as they dry out faster.

moc ... I always read the forum though I don't post too often. I did take pics this year and may get a shot or two in the alphabet after New Years. Am always happy to see others look at oriental gardens (and Chinese gardens are quite different from Japanese) if only because it gives a broader outlook to creating our own personal garden spaces. As for winter ... bring it on! though I don't expect snow that stays until November. The relatively late spring, cool wet summer and now a moderately early frost have given a very good hosta season neatly bookmarked. I cannot complain and in truth, look forward to a long cold (and I hope snow covered) winter to give those hostas a good recovery period. Doug

they unfortunately won't have that classic bhut flavor since they didn't get ripe. but they will still have plenty of heat. my advice would be to cut them up and freeze them (if you cut them up and put them in the freezer on a plate, then when they're frozen transfer them to a bag so they're not frozen together as a big lump) and add them to foods you want to be spicy. again it won't have that awesome flavor, but the flavor isn't BAD when green (just not as awesome as it woulda been if it had time to ripen), and it'll still have plenty of heat.

Yes, you can collect all through winter as long as the seeds are on the plants. Many plants don't finish ripening their seeds until well after frost.