Got all my tomatoes - the Sungold plant is still alive, though, so I left it alone. The others I have pulled down - I have success ripening my tomatoes in brown paper bags, so I've been doing that. The basil and beans are done, and I've been collecting basil seeds before yanking the plants completely.

But my kale and turnips are loving this weather, and I'm seeing newly planted garlic starting to sprout, so getting ready to mulch that bed. I covered the lettuce with remay, so it's doing fine.

I have an ornamental fig that DH gave me for our 15th anniversary (17 years ago!) that lives outside in the warm weather; that's been inside for a couple of weeks now. He bought 5 small citrus trees this year (what was he thinking?), which are also indoors now, too, and will get repotted in the spring.

My kale and turnips are doing great as well, also my carrots and peas. Some of my other winter veggies barely germinated, but since I heavily sheet mulched with leaf compost this year I'm really not surprised. But the worms will eat well this winter and it should pay dividends next year.

I just planted garlic this weekend. It seemed a little early but the soil temp was low enough.

I'll be so glad when we stop this madness of keeping houses in opposite ends of the country. We are never in the right place at the right time to take care of the veggies, so all the gardening effort is simply exercise in planting for my DH. Our house sitter takes what he likes and the rest goes to seed or to the critters. Next year, it will be different.

I was putting my tomato splits and bug-eaten fruits into the compost pile before I left here. Next year, I will be planting that Cherokee purple tomato, which looks so good.