Rug up...it's cold out there!

After a few days of lovely rainy (45 mm!) cloudy weather, the mercury is still hovering below 10, and the sky is looking ominously clear. Why ominous? Because it means that father frost is probably going to make his first visit in the next few days - and I'm not ready!!

I still have peppers, eggplants, chilli and even some tomatoes still maturing - all my plant children seemed to be late bloomers this year! Even though it's more optimistic than realistic I'm hoping to get another week to let them ripen a bit more before harvesting them. So tonight it was time to cover up.

I tend to use whatever is easiest - the chillies I covered with some cloche material that was on sale last year, and the pepper and eggplant bed I covered with the pieces of shade cloth that I use to protect the beds in summer.

Given that frost is forecast for the next 3 nights, I decided it was time to harvest the meagre pumpkin collection, as well as the ripe raspberries, tomatoes, and a couple of peppers and eggplants for tonight's dinner.

One year I WILL have a good pumpkin harvest. This year is NOT that year.

I have only managed 6 that are definitely ripe enough to store. The plants are in such a bad state it wasn't worth pulling them up to try and let them ripen further. So the grand tally for the year will be 4 marina di choggia, 1 turks turban and 2 pink banana. There are 5 or 6 additional small marina di c's that will probably be thinly sliced in stir frys and the like a la Jackie French.

Sigh.

Oh, and Kelly.... please don't tell me how great your butternut bonanza has been. Otherwise I may throw all my toys out of the pram and have a good old fashioned sulk :)