It'll be hard to say goodbye to the little hummingbirds at the feeder by the window. And all the plants on the front porch have to go to "sleep" in the cold room inside, leaving an empty doorway to greet visitors.
But the harvest is fully underway with daily tomatoes, green beans and herbs arriving in the kitchen in almost overwhelming numbers. Every armful of veggies brings the promise of flavorful winter meals from the freezer - yum!
Until this past week, I hadn't noticed that some of my neighbors have veggie gardens - are you wondering how I missed it all summer but notice now, in September? Our gardens are all open, no fencing, with lots of small trees and bushes that keep most backyards secluded. But the view has changed recently with the cooler overnight temps -
Row Cover! Wrapped over some PVC hoops pushed into the soil. I'll bet there are some tomatoes under that fabric.In my garden the green beans are still producing so I'm determined to protect the vines from any frost. And the tomatoes haven't all reached the blush color that means they'll ripen off the vine. Last year my corn plants weren't ready for harvest by the time of the first frost so I wrapped up the 6' tall plants - it was quite a sight, especially when a slight breeze made the row cover look like a huge ghost lurking just behind the garden fence!
The floating row cover I bought from the Master Gardeners protects the plants when the temperature drops to about 30 degrees. I use clothes pins to anchor the fabric to the trellis and tomato cages and it stays there until the weather forecast promises above freezing nights. The irrigation can pass through the fabric and it's not so heavy that the sunlight is blocked. (In the middle of summer, I use it to protect the cabbage from the moths that eat huge holes in the heads.)
My other season extender is my cold frame, made from old windows and 2x12 lumber. I was lucky to have the windows and lumber but I've seen other cold frames made of stacked straw bales with a 'lid' of rigid plastic on top. If you've got the space, you can even just dig a hole in the groundabout 12 - 15" deep and make a cover of plastic. If the ground is soft, you may want to line it with lumber but the important part is having the cold frame face south. As you can see, the back is higher than the front so when the lid is closed, the light gets all the way to the back.
If you're going to use the cold frame farther into the fall and winter, you can add some heating cables on the bottom. I've used incandescent light bulbs in a shop light but they're getting harder to find. This picture shows a cold frame with water jugs - the water is heated from the sun all day long and gives off the heat overnight. I'd put the jugs in clusters all around the plants and not expect too much once the daytime temps go below freezing. Some veggies like broccoli, peas and spinach do really well in this setting but warm temp plants like eggplant, green beans and tomatoes, not so much.If you've still got plants in the ground not quite ready to harvest and there's a sudden cold snap, go for anything that can cover your plants: blankets, sheets, cardboard boxes, even bottomless milk jugs for small plants.
There are lots of options for getting your crop to harvest despite the weather. Here are some sites with good information:
http://www.uaf.edu/files/ces/districts/tanana/mg/manual/9-Greenhouses-and-Season-Extenders.pdf
https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/files/project/pdf/pnw548.pdf
http://extension.illinois.edu/hortihints/0402c.html
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