A Fond Farewell to the Vegetable Patch -- Almost

Lonely posts at the back are all  that is left of the cucumber
  vines  that fed me all summer.

     September's warmth continued right into October and then even most of November. Who needs North Carolina  when I can live  like this? We owe this bliss,  apparently,  to  a strong El  Nino in the Pacific.

     I am not complaining. In addition to wearing short sleeves much later than usual, I saw the leaves on my trees change color more leisurely and cling to their branches much longer.

     My veggies did the same. Cukes seem to have a clock of their own no matter what the weather, so they checked out at the end of September. But my green beans and tomatoes were still poking along last week when we pulled the last of them. The beans are safe in the freezer, along with all the basil and pesto sauce. Our last tomatoes are still ripening in a flat cardboard box in the pantry, I had two more at lunch today.

This small head of broccoli should withstand
 what may be our first light frost of the season.

     My fall crops of cool weather veggies like chard, snow peas, spinach and parsley are still going great guns and should even make it through the 4 inches of snow we are supposed to get tomorrow. But we harvested about half of them just to be safe.

My peas lie right on top to make them  easy to pick..
Next year I will train them to jump directly into my bag.

     And my parsley, so essential to everything from pasta to tabbouleh salad, will get frozen and crushed several times by the snow and still spring back when the sun pops  out. I hope to be picking some for Christmas dinner.