We had a good hard frost on Sunday morning, as you can see from the above picture of some broccolis wondering what happened to Summer. We spent much of the day Friday and Saturday harvesting all the tomatoes and peppers that we could, in anticipation. Most of the tomatoes weren't fully ripe. Leave them out on your counter top to continue them ripening. If you want to speed up the process, place a banana next to them. They won't have the flavor of a truly vine- ripened tomato, but they are better than nothing, which is what we will be having soon, unless you managed to freeze some or --and I shudder a the thought-- you buy some at a grocery store. But why would you want to do that? The frost also put a screeching halt to zucchini and green beans and okra. Hopefully the little lettuces are all okay. This frost is a good month earlier than the first fall frost of last year.
We are offeing kiwi berries this week. My father is in charge of caring for the kiwi vines and he does a fine job of it. Here's what the berries look like on the vine:
and in the box:
although I usually package them without the quarter. This years crop is less than last years but we should have them for two or three weeks. Kiwi berries are not ready to eat until they are soft. To ripen them, simply leave out on countertop and check each berry daily to see if it is soft. No banana necessary. They don't always ripen all at once. The skins are edible, no peeling necessary, eat like grapes. The flavor is just like a fuzzy kiwi, only more so.
We are also starting to offer winter squash. Somehow I forgot to plant the ever popular spaghetti squash, but we have or will have delicata, butternut, a few f a new variety of acorn called "starry night", and a cross of a kabocha and a butternut called "tetsukabuko". It tastes more like a kabocha with dry flesh and is such an unattractive squash in terms of looks that my camera refused to take a picture of it.
