Preparing for frost

Finally, we had our first cloudy, chilly, fallish day here in northern Colorado yesterday after a long stretch of hot and very dry weather. The trees here are turning orange and red and my hot-weather plants are beginning to fade.

Last night we were supposed to get our first frost so I went and picked everything that's prone to frost damage. I picked an entire bowlful of green tomatoes - I'm hoping they'll ripen indoors.

There were a few sad looking zucchini left so I picked them as well (not that I need more zucchini)...

I also got one green onion that popped out of the ground in late august - way after all of the others came and went. Random.

I got a total of two jalapeno peppers, which will be used in chili making this week!

Swiss chard can stand light frosts, but I went ahead and picked some of the bigger leaves (and chopped and froze them), just in case.

To my surprise, I found several short, fat, pudgy carrots. The squirrels made a habit of pulling them up and stealing them right as they were ready for picking. One day I will get my revenge...

This is the largest quantity of green beans I've gotten at once (which isn't saying much).

It ended up not freezing last night and it's supposed to jump back up to near 80 this weekend. I am, however, thankful for the rain we got. This summer has been one of the driest in a long time - we had less than an inch and a half of rain from August through the beginning of October and wildfires were breaking out left and right. 

So I'm thankful for the cool, wet days, even if that means my garden is coming to an end.