The Remnants of My Garden

Oh, they look so pretty!  I picked all of these tomatoes just before that last of the big freezes came through at the beginning of this month.  I had read, if you know that the freeze is coming and you can not protect against it, to pick all the tomatoes and set them on the counter to ripen.  We were skeptics, but it worked.

See, being in South Florida, we grow all year round.  I know my Northern junkies, EAT YOUR HEART OUT!  One thing about it, is we typically do not get hard freezes.  Well, this year we did and it was a long one!  I just supplement my groceries with my garden.  I am not the best producer, but I figure I have years to get there.  I do mostly, well that is what Southern women do, wear funny hats and grow tomatoes!  I am a Ouiser at heart, (just watch Steel Magnolias).

So here is the ugly!  This is what the frost did to me!

This is what is left of my tomato plants.  Toast!  The first row is my younger flock, there is some hope.  I have some new growth from the bottom, so they might still produce before my new plantings can.  My producing flock, yuk.  Nothin' but cooked greens is what they look like.  I should have taken pics when I had a chance.  They were full of green tomatoes, full of life. These were the best tomatoes I have ever grown and poof, gone in a week.

I also lost my blooming spaghetti squash and bell peppers.  They were decimated in the freeze with out even a nub to photograph.

I do have life still!  These are my mustard greens!  Yum, yum!  I think they got greener in the freeze.

This is Bok Choy.  I actually took about a month to remember what it was when it came up.  I forgot all about planting it.  Vietnamese noodles it will go!

Broccoli is still progressing, along with the cauliflower and onions.

I have the onions all over in the ground.  I love it in the next few months when they get huge.

I am combing my seed inventory for my next planting round.  I need to first get the weather forecast together to figure out if it will freeze again in February, I am hoping for just a chill. 

I am in a rush for time.  I am slowly becoming in pain in my back from this pregnancy.  From other friends, I am learning that at 4 pregnancies your body no longer can keep the baby in the belly.  So my belly is falling more forward, causing a lot of strain on my back.  It is like my belly is 50 lbs itself.  So picking things up and bending over is increasingly uncomfortable and painful.  The scary part is I am the only one doing a 4th pregnancy within 6 years, so I think I am less in shape than the others.  But after this one, whoa, I am done.  I am up for adoption before being pregnant again.

Well love from the dirt!