frost

we've already had frost 4 times this fall. this morning, ed said that the spinach was frozen stiff; i'm glad that i covered my lettuces and arugula yesterday. i spent all day doing it, making hoop tunnels out of metal rods and plastic, and looking for stones to hold them down; luckily, brian came over and helped me (a lot). he told me which crops need to be covered immediately and which can wait. and he helped me haul stones out of the woods. i needed a lot of them to hold down the plastic covers which kept being blown away by the wind.
i left the spinach, broccoli raab, kale, turnips and radishes uncovered, but i'll hopefuly get to them today. in any case they're supposed to be able to handle mild frosts.
today the sky is clear and blue, and it's cold, and so beautiful. i love this weather, i dress warm and i can be outside all day.

here are some pictures i'd like to share:

aiyana checking out a praying mantis. we were all very excited to discover it, knowing that it's great at eating crop pest.

i picked all my peppers and eggpants on sunday, before the frost hit. they're not frost tolerant at all.

the girls jumping on the trampoline

this is my rainbow chard. i grew it because it's so beautiful, and it turns out that it's also delicious. but i think it sells on looks alone.

chard leaf

and more chard

some of our chickens getting into their coop for the night

lettuces, before i covered them

spinach!

and more lettuces. people love our salad mix, which has these lettuces, and more, as well as some tatsoi and mizuna in it. i've had many people say it's the best salad they ever had. i love that.

peace