THE FROST IS COMING--THE GARDEN IS GOING

Last night we got a bit of frost, the tops of the zucchini and cucumber plants were wilted this morning. We knew it was coming so yesterday we picked all the tomatoes and today picked the beans. While I was picking beans it snowed. Okay, only about twenty flakes and the snow storm lasted about thirty seconds, but it was snow.

Some of the tomato plants. Phil makes trellis's for the tomato, bean and cucumber plants. He is Mr. Wonderful Gardener.
These are grape tomatoes. A wonderful tomato, they don't split as readily as cherry tomatoes and they ripen, ALL of the green ones. Year before last we ate tomatoes every single day on salads up to Christmas.
These will be sliced and go into the dehydrator as there are too many to eat.
All the ripe romas will also go into the dehydrator. The bean plants.
I got two bowls--my largest stainless steel bowl--this isn't it--full and HALF of them were too old. I could cry. All that work. They had to be picked, washed and then when I was snipping the ends off I could tell they were too old. I got only nine quarts of Dilly Beans and all the family loves them. It seems like I "bean;d" all the live long day.This is my "cooking straw" photo. Actually I snip the dill and simmer it in the brine so I won't have dill in the bottles of beans. I put a little strainer in top of the jar and then pour the "straw brine" in. My daughter -in-law, The Yoga Empress supplied the dill. Her garden has a forest of dill. For some reason my dill did not reseed itself this year. Because of my bad bean harvest I didn't use all of the dill. Now I feel like a greedy-dill-taker. I will give her a jar of Dilly Beans as a thank-you.

The finished product. In about a month they will be all dilled-up and ready to eat but do you think I will let anyone touch them? No way. They were too much work.This reminds me of a story of my childhood friend. Years and years ago it was canning season and for some reason there was a sugar shortage. The cost of sugar was astronomical. My friend had to have some sugar so she bought a ten pound bag and then she couldn't bear to open it so they cut back on sugar. The price of sugar eventually returned to normal. She bought new sugar but could not bear to open the expensive bag. She used the new sugar up and bought more. This went on for at least a couple of years that I know about. The expensive sugar was not opened in all that time. I wonder if she ever opened it.