The season is over, and now we need to do some gardening clean-up. After scooping the composting manure out of the back of my truck, we’re going to have to do some serioius truck clean-up as well.

Just like last year, the onions just don’t want to die. The funny thing is, their green tops died more than a month ago, and now they’re pushing to come back again. The onions from last summer didn’t amount to anything this summer, so I think pulling them up and starting fresh next year is probably the best idea.

After the squash borers, the poor soil, and the giant silver maple shading out our garden, we got three little sugar pumpkins this year!

One is still green – though I guess a lot of people grow pumpkins just to eat them green. The green ones don’t keep as long, but we’ll eat it anyway!

… and this is what happens when you let it snow before pulling your eggplants out of the ground (or, rather, out of their pots). The original idea was to move the eggplants to a warmer location once it got cold, and hope to extend their production a bit. But, alas, they didn’t produce as much as I had hoped and prolonging their lives just seemed futile.

Remember the giant amount of tomatoes that I picked the other day? Well, about half of them started to ripen already! So the counter was filled with red, orange, and green tomatoes; I decided to make some red, orange, and green salsas.

They are pretty simple; just tomatoes, onions, and chile peppers – also, I added xanthan gum which gave them a much better consistency than last year (this time they aren’t watery). I also made two green tomatoe pies for my dad, who was here today to install a new window in my house.

I drastically reduced the number of vegetables hanging out on the counter and in baskets in the basement by slicing them up and pickling them. I really, really hope that we like pickled green tomatoes! I found tons of recipes for them, so I know that someone likes them. Some of the pickles include cucumbers, carrots, onions, and hot peppers. I also made a few pints of sliced green tomato “chips,” which apparently are a delicious replacement for sliced pickled cucumbers.

I ditched the sugar in half of the things I canned this year and went with agave nectar instead. We’ll see how that turns out – most of the pickles aren’t ready to eat yet, but the agave-sweetened refrigerator pickles I made (more in the fridge from yesterday too!) turned out really well.

We woke up yesterday morning to a dusting of snow on the ground, which melted and returned throughout the day. The snowfall is pretty light, but it’s been steady since at least 7:00 last night, and doesn’t look like it’s going to let up any time soon!

Chris got all of the tomatoes out of the ground, along with the cucumbers and beans. The eggplants are slowly dying in the cold. The only thing left is the pumpkins, which are mostly orange now. The carrots are still in the ground, but they’ll stay there for a while longer. I’m not sure how the kale and lettuce Chris planted is doing – the newer bunch of carrots are coming up nicely, and Chris did put some storm windows over them to protect them from the snow. His plan for the weekend is making cold frames.

Niko checked out one of the multiple baskets full of tomatoes this afternoon. With snow in the forecast, it’s time to get these guys off the vines. Surprisingly, there were a lot more than I expected!

I made a green tomato and apple chutney earlier this year, which turned out really good! The next few days are going to be spent dealing with this lot. We have about a half paper grocery bag full of cherry and smaller-sized green tomatoes – I think I’ll try slicing them in half and pickling them. Should be interesting!

My guess would be somewhere around 60 pounds, but we didn’t actually weigh them. The basket handles started to break off on the last load, though!

I raided the tomato plants in the front yard, filling up my entire stovetop with green and pink tomatoes this afternoon. Tomorrow it’s the back yard. I smell indian dishes and green tomato pie in the forecast…

The weather man says that we may get snow on Tuesday night, and that Wednesday will be in the 30s. Alas, it’s time to start taking apart the garden. I pulled some tomato plants out today, and the eggplants, beans, cukes, etc. are still to come. Tip for next year: Wear gloves when pulling out tomato plants, as your hands turn yellow and stain everything you touch yellow as well!

Pictured, left to right: a sweet dumpling squash from our Easy Bean CSA, our random squash that popped up in the garden, and a sweet dumpling squash from our Easy Bean CSA. Hah! I now recall getting one of these in our food share last year, but couldn’t remember earlier this year. So, that’s where the seeds came from, and the mystery is now solved.

Maybe if we save the seeds from the squash we grew, more than one will grow on the vine this year. Of course, that would be assuming that the fruit was pollinated by flowers from its own plant – if not, then we may have a new, interesting variety to show off next year.