Cold Weather Brings the End of the Summer Garden

Well, we had several nights of very cold temperatures and this time we did not try to protect the garden. It froze and all the warm season plants died.
Before the freeze I went through and picked everything that was growing. That included a lot of green tomatoes.
In the south there is a reason for fried green tomatoes. The tomatoes slow down in the summer because of the heat. They start setting fruit when it cools back down again. The only problem is that it does not have time to ripen. So, fried green tomatoes. I am not from the south, but I know some people who are, and they snapped up all the green tomatoes.

This is what the pre-freeze harvest looked like:

I picked:
Tomatoes (6.13 lbs) consisting of:
   48 Green tomatoes
     6 Yellow or red tomatoes
   16 Green cherry tomatoes
     2 Red cherry tomatoes
13 Eggplant (3.34 lbs)
  3 Cucumbers (0.73 lbs)
  1 Romaine (0.11 lbs)
The three remaining basil plants (1.03 lbs)

It All Looks so Sad Now, But There are Still Plants Growing

I always have mixed feelings about the first freeze. On the one had I am sad to see the garden go, but on the other I am glad it is done so I don't have to do as much work.

Through all the dead there are still quite a few plants growing. We have two lettuce plants that we harvested a month or so ago that are coming back. We also have two kale plants that should grow all through the winter. Finally, we have broccoli and cauliflower plants that are starting head, so that should be coming soon.

Lettuce

Kale

Broccoli and Cauliflower

Broccoli and cauliflower heading

The garden looks much better after cleaning out all the frozen plants. It kind of reminds me of how it looked in the spring when it was just getting going.