Wow! Global climate change is making a huge impact here in Ohio with a FREEZE warning on the last day of September?!? Not even any frosts first, we’re going right to a freeze. Geeze. We are two weeks early from our October 15 date, the usual “first frost” date for Zone 5/6. Don’t panic! While it is expected to get to 32 degrees tonight, this is not likely to be a hard freeze and many of your summer plants can be covered and protected . Bring in any houseplants and cover summer vegetable plants with blankets. I’m afraid just sheets are not going to be enough. If you have a trellis, drape the blanket over the trellis and anchor it around your garden box. If you don’t have a trellis, try to support the blanket in some way with sticks into the ground. If you can’t, just covering it will be better than not. This is not the end of warm temperatures and our “Indian Summer” will show up soon! If you’re tired of gardening and would just like to salvage what you can, tomatoes can be picked green, wrapped in newspaper and kept in a cool, dry area such as a basement. They will ripen slowly over the next couple of months and you might have home-grown tomatoes at Thanksgiving or Christmas! Be sure to check them periodically to be sure they are not rotting. Pick whatever other vegetables are ripe and then remove plants after they’ve died back from the freeze. If you planted “spring” vegetables in August or September, they will be OK. In fact, kale, brussels sprouts and other cole-family plants LIKE frost and the frost will improve flavor. Cover spinach and lettuce lightly to protect them, but they should do OK.

Anyone interested in a workshop yet this fall? I think I still have enough ingredients left to mix soil and, quite frankly, I need some help getting boxes built and ready in my yard for the spring! We’ll start from measuring and mapping the yard, determining layout, design for most efficient use of space for maximum growth, building boxes, mixing soil and we might even build a couple of low hoop houses for some winter greens. We’ll discuss how to integrate food production within the landscape (although, right now I’m mostly focused on food production in my small yard, but we still want some pretty) and even incorporate some edible landscaping plants!