It’s time to start putting away food for the winter. Last week I picked a colander full of small Early Girl II tomatoes and made tomato sauce. I used it on Stuffed Eggplant Parmesan with three beautiful eggplants from the garden. We used the remainder to make spaghetti. It passed the “Annabelle Test.” She was with us this past weekend and loved it.

I cleaned and packed four freezer bags of red Jalapeños over the weekend. There are still lots of Jalapeños in the garden and I will keep sharing and using them until the first frost when the remainder will go in the freezer.

Today I finished the second tray of chives for the freezer. A week ago, I chopped and froze chives, parsley, and basil in olive oil in and stored ice cube trays. That should supply us with fresh herbs throughout the winter. The rosemary and sage usually last until almost February in the garden.

I have a large amount of poblano peppers that I will start freezing. There are lots of smaller green peppers that I hope will grow a bit before I need to pick them. The zucchini is near the end, and the tomato plants are dying off, but we’ll have tomatoes until the first frost. At this point no frost is predicted through the end of October. Global warming isn’t all bad.