Tore down the vegetable garden today. The tomato plants were still green doesn't look like the frost or anything thing else got to them. Usually I see the lower part of the plants are dried up and top parts are not much better. It seems like the frost got here a bit late also which is why the plants look so good. Found a few extra onion plants I didn't have before.
I pulled all of the tomatoes that I thought were big enough. I sorted them by color, took the greenest ones and put them in a shallow bin that they are able 2-3 tomatoes deep. Another bin I put the ones that look they are almost ready to turn and the red ones I am going to can soon. The greenest bin I put out in the garage and plan to check them weekly at the latest. The almost ready I left in the house and will keep a closer eye on. As the ones start to turn I will bring them in.
The jalapeno plants were also looking very well. I was able to pull the peppers from that plants and bring them in. There were als o a number of dead bean plants with some dried beans. I took in the beans and took the seeds inside for next year. Didn't get any cucumber or squash seeds this year as we didn't get much. There were a couple of onions that I had go to seed, but the seeds where not what I expected. They were tiny and lost most of them so I will probably end up with a bunch of heirloom red onions next here. Next year I will bag the bud to capture more of the seeds. I will probably grab some pepper and maybe some tomato seeds also.
I wasn't able to get the "dirt" out of the compost bin this year, because it didn't compose completely enough. I think that I need to see a monthly timer to rotate and water them. With what I took from the vegetable garden filled both bins and one I could barely close. Where I had onions and garlic growing I watered them with a Miracle Grow fertilizer which I hope will help them. I am going to try and do that again in the spring, but the whole garden. Compared to some other people that I know have gardens, mine this year seemed slow to produce.
