Northeast Iowa's autumn will probably be recorded as one of the best in history: for example, the temperature Sunday, Nov. 6, soared above 60 degrees in our Frog Hollow yard. Similar temperatures followed Monday through Wednesday. In November!! Typically this time of year, we can expect anything from a high of 36 to maybe a day or two of 52 degrees.
For gardeners like myself, it was a godsend to have the temperatures continue to hover around the 55 or 60 degree mark. I then found time to plant two dozen cloves of garlic, which I dutifully covered with fertilizer from my chickens' coop, along with the required mulch of newspapers and grass clippings.
But perhaps sweetest of all are those tomatoes that were late bloomers this year due to plentiful rainfall in the summer months. Because of all the rain, insects often got to the tomatoes before I did, thwarting my intention to preserve 20 or more quarts of "tomato cocktail," a sort of homemade V8 juice. But as September arrived and our night-time temperatures dropped below 30 degrees, I couldn't bear to just leave 50 green tomatoes – an heirloom variety known as Cherokee Purple – to rot.
I plucked the green orbs from their vines, wrapped them in newspaper, and carefully packed each into a cardboard box. Last week, I had enough ripe, red heirloom fruits to preserve a little more than 2 qts. of tomato cocktail, its spicy liquid promising a delectable meal of chili on a cold day in January. With the tomatoes that ripen only one or two at a time, the hubby and I are indulging in BLT sandwiches with lettuce – particularly kale – we're still able to harvest from the garden.
So even though snow showers are forecast for this weekend, several shelves in the basement hold tomato juice for chili, spaghetti sauce for a meal in a jiffy, peach salsa for snacking, and peach preserves for a pie in case company stops by.
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