Tomato Harvest in November?!?

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I planted tomatoes very late in the season this year, mainly because it was a last ditch attempt to have some for salsa and tomato sauce.  I planted 3 plants on June 27th: One Better Boy, One Big Boy, and One Roma.  By the time I planted we were well into summer and none of the flowers produced any fruit.

The plants survived the heat of summer and once the temperatures cooled in early September they really started putting out fruit.  I have waited almost two months for them to vine ripen and although a few of them have, I think the temps are just too cool now for that to happen.

So tonight I decided to pick the best ones from the plants.  I am going to make some fried green tomatoes and let the rest ripen indoors.  The total haul in the large basket below was 19 pounds.  There are still more on the plants, but I will let them go until the first frost approaches.

Garden Update - October 29th

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The garden is still doing pretty good. The temperatures have cooled with 40's and 50's at night and 60's to 70's during the day. We almost had a frost earlier last week, but it barely missed us. The lima beans are producing pods like crazy, and if they can make it before the first frost I will have a great harvest. The fall lettuce is coming in nicely, but the spinach is just not doing well. The tomatoes and peppers are still producing, but the tomatoes are all green.

Garden overall, the two big beds up front are baby lima beans.

This is just one corner of one of the beds and look at all the pods. I sure hope they make it before first frost.

Here is the bed of lettuce, there are 12 heads going out of 16 seeds planted. I can't wait to eat fresh salads in just a few more weeks.

Close up of lettuce, this is Great Lakes variety#118, awesome for salads.

Peppers are still going, I had such good luck with jalapenos that I am going to try habaneros next year.

Close up of jalapeno peppers.

A row of spinach, maybe it will get bigger, it is just not doing as good as my lettuce.

My tomato plants have grown into a snarled mess, but they are loaded with green tomatoes.

I don't know if they will ripen before first frost, here is a cluster of green ones.

Garden Chipmunk Finally Caught

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Warning, this post is about how I finally caught the chipmunk terrorizing my garden. It contains pretty graphic information and may be unsettling to some people. If this is you then do not read any further.

I have been trying to catch this chipmunk for a few weeks now and nothing has worked. I have tried rat traps, glue traps, metal cage traps, you name it. I see him all the time but he always runs into my lima bean patch and disappears.

Tonight I figured out that he was been running into the open end of a drainage pipe that I have installed in my garden. My garden area is outlined in concrete pavers and this obstructs the natural flow of water out of my yard. I built a redneck drainage system to funnel the water that build ups in front of the pavers. It consists of a simple cone drainage grate that is connected to a piece of black pipe that runs under the pavers and out of the other end.  The other end of the pipe is exposed where the water drains out.

Once I figured out he was in the pipe, getting rid of him was easy.  First I stuffed the open end of the pipe with a towel, essentially trapping him in the pipe since the other end of the pipe is the drainage grate.  I then put my water hose over the grate and began to fill the pipe slowly with water.  I wanted to be as humane as possible, so I had my pellet gun ready for when he tried to escape the water once it filled the pipe.  He finally appeared at the top of the grate and I did what I had to.

I am glad he is finally gone.  I may put another grate on the open end of the pipe just to prevent any more chipmunks from getting the same idea.

This is the hav-a-hart trap that he just was too smart to go in.

This is the grate in front of the pavers

This is the open end of pipe on the other side of the pavers, nice lima beans.

You can see the distance from the grate to end of pipe, nice little spot for him to chill underground.