It sure does feel like November here, cold and gloomy. But, our garden is still producing. Yes! This is our first year with a fall garden (we've been gardening in spring/summer for years). We planted carrots, onions, radishes, and spinach. I'm just so pleasantly surprised how well our garden has done, even with many nights of frost. 
My poor zucchini and cucumbers. They were doing so well and then the squash bugs appeared and destroyed all the plants. In less than a week! Lesson learned for next year. We don't use any pesticides on our garden, so next year we'll have to read up on pests and safe prevention. I'm so bummed out we didn't get to enjoy those vegetables for very long. But, we're enjoying our tomatoes right now and this weekend we'll plant our fall crop of baby spinach and carrots. I can't believe it's time to think about fall already!
All I can say is.. yum. I've been slow roasting batches of our cherry tomatoes for a couple weeks now. They are just so flavorful when slow roasted. Wow. I'm freezing most of them for future use. The recipe is from the wonderful Smitten Kitchen. It's a must try if you like tomatoes!
Slow Roasted Tomatoes
Cherry or grape tomatoes
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 225 degrees F. Halve each tomato in half crosswise and arrange on a parchment lined baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, just enough to make the tomatoes glisten. Season with salt and pepper. Bake for about three hours. The tomatoes should be shriveled and dry with a little juice left inside. Enjoy!
I went strawberry picking a few weeks ago at a u-pick patch just outside of town. Last year I made strawberry freezer jam, but this year I decided just to make some strawberry sauce to freeze. I froze the sauce in ice cube trays and then popped them all in plastic bags. The perfect size for a sundae or smoothie. I never did get around to making strawberry shortcake. Maybe I'll have to try that with my raspberries from our backyard. One of my favorite things about summer is all the fresh fruit. Yum!
around our yard
What a nice trip to the greenhouses we had this morning. Sara loved touching all the flowers and sticking her fingers in their pots. The ladies who worked there said she was their kind of gal :-) There was a group of older kids there on a field trip and the little one was thrilled that some of them waved to her. I only bought some fountain grass, so we'll definitely have to make another trip there very soon!
What a productive day it is! In the past hour I have planted carrot, radish, spinach, and green onion seeds in the garden. Finally. This spring has been so cold and rainy, I'm behind schedule in planting our seeds. I planted our onion bulbs a week or two ago. Next thing I have to plant is the sunflowers. I can hear the little one just waking from her nap now, so I'll have a little helper to help me plant those. I bought some dwarf sunflowers (2 ft tall) just for her, they're so cute.
Currently...
That time of the year, hooray! I have basil and romaine lettuce that I have already started indoors. Once warm enough, we'll plant the seeds in our raised beds for carrots, radishes, green onions and a gourmet lettuce mixture. Oh, and flowers too. I definitely need more flowers in our yard. I also have red and white onion bulbs to plant. Later we'll plant tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, jalapenos, green peppers, and more herbs. Last year we had such bad luck with our tomatoes. Sara's going to have her own little garden with some flowers, maybe a vegetable and a cute little garden gnome. That's probably what I'm looking forward to the most!
We went to the farmer's market on Saturday, probably for the last time this year. I'll miss it. I bought some cookies, salsa, fresh cheese curds, tiny pumpkins and beef jerky. The beef jerky was awesome! I'd like to try to make jerky sometime. 
