Before Frost

The weather prediction for my town said 32 degrees for Wednesday night. We have been having a pleasantly warm autumn, and this would be our first frost.
I have been letting my herbs and peppers soak up the last bits of sunshine and rain, and now it’s time to bring them indoors. Usually we let the peppers die off over the winter, but the habaneros are just now beginning to flourish and have so many lovely little green peppers hanging from their branches that I couldn’t bear to see a frost hit them. I went out with pots and a shovel Tuesday evening after Greta was asleep and dug up my beautiful thyme and oregano and sage plants to add to my kitchen greenery. They’ve grown so beautifully since I got them! Greta and I rescued three of the best-looking habanero plants before dinner and put them into pots. The rest of the beets had to be pulled, and the tomato plants checked for any last ripe ones. There were a couple of tomatoes with a blush of red, so I picked them. Hopefully they’ll ripen a bit more on a windowsill. If I were Ma Ingalls I would pick all the green ones too and make something delicious out of them, but I’m not and perhaps that can wait for another year! Now there is sage hanging in bunches from a line in the downstairs bedroom to dry, and the dehydrator is full of more cayenne peppers to dry. The house smells sweet and spicy because of the drying peppers. It’s a lovely feeling, being snug in the house with a fire in the stove, chill winds outside, and cheerful green reminders of summer in the corners. (Ha. I even stuck a pail of sage and thyme in my bathroom. Now my bathroom is not what you could consider roomy, but it improves the whole teeth-brushing experience a great deal to be tripping over some happy herbs. In my opinion at any rate. My Handsome Dude is probably rolling his eyes.)