(D♥A) WE Dodged the Frost Again! :)

It's Fall and it feels it! We adore Fall and its breath of fresh, crisp air! After the heat of summer, any garden that survived (and that usually isn't much) puts out the best quality produce of the season. All the veggies seem to be bigger, much nicer looking, and definitely much better flavored. Don't get me wrong, all of the veggies all through the summer were great, but those fall veggies just can't be beat!

And then there is the beautiful, rich color of Fall! Not only do the trees begin to turn their mix of gorgeous Autumn colors, but the 'weeds' do as well. Kinda makes it worth not getting rid of all of them. Actually, it makes it a lot worth it! I'm not sure what it is, but one of those weeds turns such a deep crimson that I have to take time from my day and just stand there for a spell and admire its beauty.  We really should do things like that more often, you know.

I think we will both agree, one of our favorite gifts from Fall is the abundant variety of apples and pears! There are just so many of them and they are all so delicious we want to try all of them. We can hardly wait until we have a big crop of pears and apples of our own. We have planted a few times, with many set backs. Last summers drought and extreme heat pretty much wiped out all that we had going. We look so forward to starting our new Orchard together next Spring! They won't be ready for next Fall, but they will be before we know it. And maybe by us growing them together this time, it will somehow bring better growth to the trees.

But Old Man Winter keeps trying to sneak in and kiss our much loved Fall away! We have had several nights now, down near freezing, and two of the nights in particular just barely missed by a degree or two! That was just too close! We still have some garden left growing that we are just not ready to give up, yet! We have most (not all) of what we are eating harvested, but we still have our "seed" veggies growing. I finally got most of the seed squash picked, but the Okra, Tomatoes and some Peppers aren't near ready, yet. And we really want those seeds for next year's garden! Having to re-buy what we can grow ourselves just really, really hurts! So we are really hoping for a couple more good weeks above the freezing mark.

One veggie, though, that is just now beginning to ripen and desperately needs a couple more weeks before harvesting is our Tabasco peppers. I don't know about Dave, but these are the best, and most beautiful Tabasco peppers I have EVER grown!!! I never knew Pepper plants could get that tall, nor have that wide of a span! It is really taller than it looks in this pic because it kind of blends into the Fig Tree. If you look on the right side of the pic, you can see that the one 'branch' of the pepper plant is as tall as my eyes! And are they ever loaded!!! We have about 6 of these plants and they are all this loaded.

Please ignore my grubby look and focus on the pepper. I had been out working in the yard all day.

It will look like a Christmas Pepper when they all get ripe!

That tallest pepper limb comes all the way up to Dave's shoulder!

Yep, we are going to enjoy LOTS of homemade hot pepper sauce in our beans this winter! We can hardly wait!