Plot twist

First, my mom's cosmos:

photo by Lucy Edwards

since she nicely sent the photo to me, and they are awesome.

Next, we are probably having a frost tonight! First frost is kind of like the anticipated plot twist in a novel; it can turn out just like you expected and still be exciting, or it can take you by surprise by not being what's predicted. In other words, it may get down to the 30s tonight but not actually freeze, and still we'll find some dead bodies in the morning, or it may hit the freezing mark but not actually kill anything. In any case, it's signaling that yes, this is autumn now, and inevitably the air will be cold and plants that don't like that will have some trouble.

I prepared over the weekend by: a) picking all the remaining tomatoes (not many) and peppers (quite a few, most of which I roasted yesterday), and pulling out the plants, along with the spent okra and the basil; b) repotting as necessary and bringing in the potted plants that I wanted to save (lime tree, baby fig tree which surprised me by putting out some new leaves at its base recently, stevia which I am babysitting for a friend, scented geranium); c) putting the other geraniums, which I really do not have room for inside this year, into the shed, pots wrapped in bubble wrap. I am aware this is not the best solution and they will probably die, but I don't have an unheated garage and our basement is a dirt cellar which we may end up having major work done on this year (there's already a bucket full of yacon crowns down there and I'll probably add dahlia tubers to that next week; dunno where they'll go if we have the "sealing" done). I still need to put something over the oca planter on the deck, and over the salad table, and we'll see.

And the bulbs are coming today! So I'll need to get those in the ground soon. Also garlic, at the community garden. Lots of fall prep work to get done there; the greens I planted a while back are doing well, and we've already eaten some collards, pak choi, Chinese broccoli, and rapini. I may go by today and throw the row cover back over the plants I took it away from because there were aphids somehow and I thought the ladybugs needed all the access they could get, but the plants are hardy enough to take a frost, even in the cold valley pocket where my plot resides.

And that is the news of the moment. (I think I prefer posting when I have something to report, rather than trying to do it every day.)