The First Cold Days of Fall

For the past number of days, we have felt the chills of late Fall beginning to set in. We had our first heavy frost come through and kill off our remaining butterbeans, beans, peppers and tomatoes.

The day before an expected freeze is always hectic. We pull up as many tomato and pepper plants as we can, which are then hung upside down in our Garden Shed to prevent them from freezing.

Some of the tomatoes are left hanging to ripen on the vines, while others are taken green to the Preservation Kitchen along with red and green peppers. They will be either pickled or made into various types of relish.

Our Garden Shed is a very colorful place now with Kentucky tan field pumpkins, varieties of Indian corn, strings of drying red peppers, Winter squash like Tennessee sweet potato, pumpkin and green striped cushaw.

Today is a cold, rainy day, and the fire in the wood burning stove keeps the chilly, damp air at bay while I occupy myself shelling out dried butterbean and field pea seed for next year’s seed stock.

Days like today are also good opportunities to catch up on things like shelling and writing stories, which there was no time for during the busy farming season.

– John Coykendall, Master Gardener