last farmers market and first frost

Today was the last Pilsen farmers market of 2008. Neither of the regular produce vendors were there, so sadly I was unable to stock up on winter squash and apples as I'd planned. I wish I'd been able to go last week but I was out of town! According to the other people I talked to, the farmers didn't have enough produce left to make it worth the trip. It sounds like next year they'll end the market sooner.

There were pumpkins for sale and most of the regular neighborhood food vendors (Cafe Aorta, Soy Organic, Kristoffers) and of course the honey vendor.

(Photos to follow next week- I don't have space on my hard drive to download the photos from my camera!) ***UPDATE: Photos added November 10, 2008***



As I write this post it is 38° F at Midway Airport with 16 mph winds, 29 mph gusts, and some rain drops. It is fiercely windy and cold. The forecast calls for a low of 35° F but a chance of snow tonight and tomorrow morning (How does that work? Snow above 32° F?). So, I did a lot of pre-frost container garden work this evening.

I brought my window boxes into the kitchen to transplant my springeri ferns, cordyline, and sweet potato vines like I said I would eariler. I'm also going to try keeping my nasturtium inside.

I did all of the most important transplanting, but I still have to finish cleaning the window boxes because there's a lot of dirt left in them.

Then I went outside and cut all of the basil that wasn't already brought inside. We'll make our last pesto batches of the season tomorrow. I picked all of the tomatoes, ripe and unripe. My last two brandywines still aren't quite ripe, nor were my roma tomatoes. The plant finally produced some tomatoes without blossom end rot and I had to harvest them green. (photos in another post next week)

There's no denying it now- winter is upon us :-(