Last of my eggplant

I'm so sad. I just picked what may be the last of my eggplant for the year. We have a cold front coming in and it's suppose to get down to freezing for two nights in a row. There are some flowers still on the plant but they'll fall off when the temperature drops.

My bell peppers have already stopped producing. Well they've been blooming and there is a bell pepper, but it's the size of my pinky nail so I pulled them up, root and all.

I didn't get a whole lot of the aubergine, but I'm grateful they did okay and that I was able to enjoy one of my favorite vegetables. I have heard from others that some of their garden didn't do so well this year, and was sad for them because I know how much that hurts when you spend lots of money, time, and effort with the results being no crop, or a ruined crop.

I also picked probably the last of the zucchini too. You'll see them in the photo along with the tomatoes. I'm going to try to save the tomato and zucchini plants by covering them with blankets at night and then uncover them during the day.

Susan at fatfree vegan calls this Fuhrman weather. I chuckled because Eat To Live is all about greens and this is the best time of year for them - spinach, lettuce, kale, collards, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage . . . etc. Also many of these are cruciferous veggies which are stars of this diet, especially for those who have autoimmune diseases.

Tip:

I picked whatever grape tomatoes were left in the garden. Many are orange, not nice and red, but here's a tip. Many think you should put a slightly green tomatoes, or not quite ripe tomatoes on the window sill to complete the ripening process.

I use to think this too, but I came across a tip (don't remember where) and tried it to see if it would work. And it did. The author of this tip also said that all I was doing was frying my tomatoes when they sit in the sun like that.

So next time you've got an unripe tomato, wrap it in a towel on your counter. It will ripen within a day or two if it's close to already ripe. I'm going to try it with the grape tomatoes in the picture above and see if I can get them to redden up a little more.

Also, it's not a good idea to refrigerate tomatoes. It makes them mealy and removes flavor somehow. So purchase your tomatoes when you'll use them or use within 3 days of purchase. Also when your tomatoes are sitting on the counter, turn them over stem side down. It helps them to last longer.

Eat to live everyone!

Laina :-)