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Last night's cold was worse out here in the burbs than for you city folk.

Lost most of my squash vines, about a fifth of my basil.
They're out on the edges. The tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos are a little wilty, but should recover during the next few days' warmer weather.

Oh well. I'll make pesto tomorrow with what's left of the ball, perhaps use it withthe immature squash.

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What is patriotism, but the love of good things we ate in our childhood?
-- Lin Yutang

True but some other crops are better than ever. My swiss chard looks better now than it did during the summer.

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Toria

"I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it" - As You Like It,
W. Shakespeare

Out of curiosity--I still have a couple hundred peppers on the plants, green. How much longer can I keep them out before risking losing them? I see that night time temps here will be in the high 30s low 40s for the rest of the week and high in the low 50s to low 60s. Should I just keep them up until a risk of frost, or should I start gathering them all up?

I'd pick everything. They're not going to ripen much in this cold.

I've had tomatoes on the vine not ripening for weeks. Green tomato chutney maybe?

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What is patriotism, but the love of good things we ate in our childhood?
-- Lin Yutang

Or pickled green tomatoes! One of my favorites.

I'll give them a couple more days, see what happens, but it doesn't look like there's going to be any break in this weather. I still have some red tomatoes that need picking. Looks like a lot of green hot sauce is in my future. Only a handful of the Trinidad scorpions (about a dozen) and bhut jolokias (like six) managed to ripen on the vine. There's about a good 50 on each plant right now. And there's the other peppers that have gone absolutely crazy. All my hab-type chiles are nearly five feet high, and I have 17 of those types of plants.

Hard freeze warning tonight for the 'burbs, says the Weather Channel. My predicted low specifically for Evanston is 32, so expect your basil/tomatoes/chiles/squash to get nipped, wherever you are in Chicagoland. The high tomorrow (and Tuesday) should rebound to 60-ish, though. Cover your tender crops if you can - there's still some on-the-plant ripening time left.

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Food & Flowers: Andre Jordan's sweet doodle for a cold winter's day; diary of an unhappy restaurateur, circa 1881; winter project - try a terrarium

Picked the garden today, leaving only the smallest tomatoes and tomatillos. Made pesto, planning on roasting the tomatillos tomorrow. I have way more green tomatoes than I can fry, and I don't like pickled green tomatoes (any other suggestions?).

I've still got freakin' flowers on those plants. Sigh.

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What is patriotism, but the love of good things we ate in our childhood?
-- Lin Yutang

Ha!! Could've been my post too

Suggestions: Green tomato chutney, green tomato jam, more roasted salsa (I love the green tomatoes roasted even more than tomatillos). And though you don't like green tomatoes pickled by themselves, have you ever pickled them, then made relish? It's pretty tasty.

I made batches of both roasted salsa verde (broiled tomatoes, tomatillos and several varieties of green chilis) and a stewed (tomatillos, garlic and onion pureed with cilantro and more raw green chilis); pesto from various greens (arugula, baby leeks, walnuts, garlic and parm) frozen in cubes, cleaned and bagged my celery, sunchokes, cilantro, coriander seeds, baby leeks, all the rest of the peppers, eggplant and garlic chives. And, yes, I still have tons of blossoms on everything but that's life! Thinking everything else will be ok for a few more days.

Finally, rewarded all of my industriousness with my new favorite casserole--adapted from a F&W recipe from Sept.'s issue I think--anyway, it is day old bread on the bottom, then layered with juicy tomatoes, a mix of sauteed kale, chard and onion, gruyere cheese, then another layer of same, topped with more bread smashed down, a cup or so of broth (I used chicken but could easily use veggie), baked covered for 40 minutes on 400, then add another cup of gruyere/parm mix to the top and broil. Can't beat it for a harvest meal!

Looking forward to April

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“The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some pretty annoying virtues.” Elizabeth Taylor

I've been covering my shishito peppers plants with a flannel sheet every night there is a frost warning. So far, so good. plenty of peppers still growing and a bunch of flowers too! not a lot of heat to these peppers but they sure taste good roasted and salted. Everything else has been harvested or just died on it's own save for the B. sprouts.

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my food shots

I left the vast majority of peppers up, and they seem to be doing fine, but I did discover that peppers--at least the capsicum chinense types, especially the ghost peppers--ripen quite well off the vine. I've only had two or three ghost peppers that I picked orange--they seem to stubbornly refuse to ripen on the vine. I picked a variety of peppers on Saturday, threw them into a paper bag, and today many of them have ripened. I picked something like a dozen ghost peppers in that batch, and all but one has turned orange.

My cubanelle and banana peppers are still going strong. My cayenne and jalapeno plants slowed down a lot but there's still some peppers on those plants I need to pick.

I think I'm picking everything I have this weekend. My cherry tomato plant is still producing really well right now too. The past few days it's slowed down but I think the warm spell over the weekend might yield me another several handfuls.

For herbs, my basil turned crappy on me a while ago but our rosemary, parsley and spicy oregano plants are still producing.

I found the frosts very light this year...so far. Today I went out and picked 4 pints of raspberries.