Figs Preserved!

They survived! Figs in November in the desert SW

Yep. We still have figs...in November! This second crop came on weeks ago -- after the last of the really hot days down here -- and have been super slow to ripen. Around mid-October we started to worry that we would lose these favorite gems to the cold nights. Fast forward to November 2 and the fruit feel like they need just a few more days... then M gets home and says he has a feeling that we are in for a hard freeze. Uh oh. Around 7:30 p.m. we head to the garden and use up a few hours of battery life on our head-lamps picking vegetables and covering what we can. Good thing we did...

frozen vegetable section

The bushes that still had figs on them were tented and had their own heat lamp; some of the heirlooms were covered and had minimal damage; everything else was on its own... and suffered (except for the Swiss Chard, which should over-winter just fine). For the next few days we're looking at temperatures in the high 60s so I'll be trimming the surviving plants and ridding the garden of frozen produce. We'll probably continue to tent the figs, sans heat lamp, just to get them a little extra warmth while they finish ripening.

What's that, Intrepid Reader? Yes, I was absent for rather a while. Thanks for coming back to check on how things are going. As a partial explanation, let me just say that having your kitchen in this state

doesn't help when you want to get from here

to here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy we managed to freeze as many quarts of tomatoes, okra, black eyed peas, green beans, etc., as we did, but the lack of adequate facilities meant we couldn't can. No pickled peppers, no ratatouille... so it goes. There's always next year, right?

They say kitchen remodels take twice as long, and cost twice as much, as you thought they would. This 3-4 week project looks like it might take 8* weeks; guess 'they' were right. In the end, I hope I'll be able to say that the costs of missing out on a few jars of homemade goodies were more than offset by the joys of working in a vastly improved kitchen. In fact, I'm pretty sure they will be -- just don't ask me about it for another few months.

As for the rest of my unexplained absence, well... as long as there's not another alien-induced vortex in my house, I should be back to my normal erratic blogging schedule. 

*That's right, Intrepid Reader, the way things are going it might be spatchcock turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.