First Frost of Fall

It was predicted by the weather service that the temperature at Opheim would drop to 36 Thursday night. I'm so glad I paid attention to that report. We actually saw it drop to 30 before dawn Friday.

I spent the morning last Thursday gathering all my potted and house plants onto the front deck. The deck furniture was used as tent framing. The plants were tucked under the chairs, table and arched bench. Some of the larger ones went atop that bench.

Lightweight blankets and beach towels were clothes pinned over everything. Weighted objects went on top of the table.

These fierce Montana winds are angry and attacking those coverings here Friday morning. I need more clothespins.

The afternoon was spent covering the more tender plants out in the garden. I have a large assortment of blankets, sleeping bags and cut up old truck tarps. There were enough to cover the 16 tomato plants, the peppers, cucumbers and some of the squash.

I did pull all the ripe orange winter squash (so delicious zapped in the microwave, slathered with butter, and sprinkled with chopped spiced mixed nuts).

The lone pumpkin plant, with its one not-yet-ripe fruit, got covered. I'll uncover things Saturday morning to see how it all fared.

I'm not trusting Mother Nature. She might decide to dip the temps below that freezing mark two nights in a row. The tender plants that weren't covered definitely suffered some damage.

As I'm still enjoying fresh corn (sometimes procrastination pays off!), here are a couple more recipes for corn salads. I do like variety.

This first one is so easy to prepare and there are fewer ingredients. In the second one, I used frozen mashed avocado, but I should have mixed it with half the lime juice to prevent browning, or mixed it in with the other dressing ingredients.

It still tastes great, just isn't quite as pleasing to the eye. Skip the cilantro in that one if you don't care for it.

FRESH RAW CORN SALAD

• 5 ears corn, cut from cob

• 1/2 C diced red onion

• 3 Tbl EVOO

• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

• 1/2 C julienned basil leaves

Toss all together. Chill & serve.

AVOCADO/CORN SALAD

• 1# cherry tomatoes, halved

• 3 ears cooked corn, cut from cob

• 2 avocados, sliced

• 1/2 red onion, sliced thin

• 1/4 C cilantro, chopped

• 2 Tbl EVOO

• 2-3 Tbl lime juice

• 2 cloves garlic, pressed

• 1/2 tsp sea salt

• 1/8 tsp pepper

Toss the first five ingredients together. Whisk together the rest, then drizzle over the veggies. Toss to combine.

I'm still slowly clearing things from the garden.

Now that we've had our first freeze, the volunteer moon flowers and husk cherries need to go. Both have already had time to produce and release seeds, so I'll have them again next summer.

Every year I swear I'll not let so many of them survive, and every year I have to admit I've lied to myself. Good thing I enjoy both so much. (The seed pods on the moon flowers are large prickly cases, that stab unwary passers by as well as hands that try to uproot them. They will grab your attention.)

I had several small cantaloupe that got just big enough to use. They ranged from softball to tennis ball sized.

I added the meat of them to watermelon, golden kiwi and the last of my blueberries for a dessert fruit salad.

I'm saving the seed from a couple to plant next summer. The seeds from the mini peppers are also dried and stored.

I'm using old pill and herb bottles for storage. They're easy to label, using an ink pen and masking tape.

The trick will be remembering to dig them out next spring to plant.

The flowers that grew from my packet of edible flowers seemed to weather the cold snap quite well, as did the small marigolds.

Petunias also take a lot of cold in stride.

I'll be saving seed from the marigolds and those edible flowers as well.

I hope some of the zinnias (they don't like the cold at all) are far enough along to have seeds I can save.

I do love my cheerful zinnias. And I need to go dig the gladioli bulbs (they should have been dug before the frost, but I forgot.)

As I remarked before, there's ALWAYS more to be done.