Last weekend might have offered up the most beautiful weather I’ve ever seen in Iowa. For two solid days, the sun shone, the temperatures hovered in the 70s, the sky was so blue and deep it almost made me stop missing the ocean, and everything felt crisp and clean.
Then it became Monday.
I wore my usual work uniform: t-shift, jeans, flip-flops, but when I walked outside mid-day Monday, I wished I’d worn closed-toe shoes and a coat. A cold, stinging drizzle fell, and the happy weather of the weekend had given way to something that felt different. Not summery. Not to my liking.
By Tuesday, the sun had returned, but I had broken out a jacket. The solst
ice is approaching and the season’s changing, whether I like it or not.
Still, the email I got this morning warning of an overnight frost knocked me around a little. I have a long list of things I need to get done today, but nowhere on that list was to bring in all the green tomatoes. Nowhere on that list was making the call, like I did last year, about what herbs or flowers to try to protect and what to leave to tonight’s low temperatures.
on Sep 14th, 2007 at 10:52 am
I always hated that first frost warning! It always came too early and seemed so unfair!
Hope everything you want, survives.
on Sep 14th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Dollface, throw a sheet over the tomatoes … it’s early to bring them in, no? That’s what I do … I don’t give it up until October. But then I’m stubborn. :-)
on Sep 14th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
When the frost warnings start around here, I pull out my tarps and beach towels. The worst part–I really hate this–is pulling all those damp things off in the morning. Still, it does extend the season.
Robin (Bumblebee)
on Sep 15th, 2007 at 5:01 am
I don’t look forward to those first frost warnings here. Our frosts are usually late enough that I just let the garden go when we do have frost. “When it’s over, it’s over”. But I like to work up to that point gradually, not have it hit me, like it did you, in mid-September!
on Sep 15th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Frost?! I’m still sweating down here at 9pm at night! Man oh man, I gotta get out of Florida. I’ll be in shorts til mid January!
on Sep 16th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I’m reading your comments, from frost to sweat.
We are still right in between here.
The weather stays pretty nice through October, but I have had tomatoes in December.
on Sep 16th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Chigiy, between frost and sweat is the perfect place to be. And tomatoes in December…heavenly!
on Sep 16th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Katiez, so far so good — it didn’t get quite as cold as they’d expected. I’m still glad I brought in so many tomatoes, though.
AB, you are stubborn! I left some…don’t worry…there’s still time for some of those to turn red on the plant.
Robin, if I hadn’t been throwing a party Friday night (which meant I didn’t really want to have my whole yard covered in tarps and beach towels), I might have thought about that. But…decided not to.
Carol, yes — working up to it gradually is so much better!
Emma, I don’t know…I kind of like the thought of shorts until January…
on Sep 16th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
well, as they say, if you don’t like the weather in Iowa today, stick around; it will be totally different tomorrow: on Tuesday it is going to be close to 90.
on Sep 16th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Don, it’s nuts. I’m kind of wishing, now, that I’d left the tomatoes out there. Sheesh.
on Oct 12th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
[...] we had a near-frost in mid-September, I harvested a ton of unripe, kind of ripe, nearly ripe and fully ripe yellow pear tomatoes, and [...]