mmm-mmm-good

Last night for dinner I had fresh lettuce picked just before eating right from the raised bed cold frame as well as fantastic yellow heritage tomatoes from the greenhouse. It was a little slice of heaven. It will, however be the end of the tomatoes for this season. Several nights ago, the vent on the greenhouse blew open in the wind, the night was cold, and the little propane bottle ran out of gas. These three things all conspired against the tomatoes and peppers. I think they could have handled 2 out of 3, but the triple whammy got them. Most of the other things in the greenhouse survived, as it only got down to 29degrees. The lettuce, spinach and rosemary are perfectly happy and thriving and a couple of the peppers are still hanging in there. After that incident, we decided we needed to hook up a larger tank to the heater in the greenhouse. And, it wouldn't hurt to have a spare, either. To make a long story short, we now have two 20 pound and one 40 pound propane tanks sitting outside the greenhouse. This is becoming an expensive proposition, however. The larger tank was the one which belongs with Earl's propane heater-a heavy duty job for garages. Unfortunately, it was the older model valve and in order to have it refilled we had to put on a new one. We finally found a place who would order the valve and replace it for us. I was shocked when I picked it up. It cost $75 to reclaim the tank...$35 of which was labor. Either it was a lot more complicated than it looked like it should have been or that was one slow laborer. It is now snowing outside, and this morning when I went out to water the animals it was 6 degrees. We are expecting it to warm up to today of a whopping 20 degrees. I think we will need to put the heater in the greenhouse on high just to keep it above freezing...forget tropical! Guess it is a good thing we have all those spare tanks. Hope you are keeping warm. Aunt Jo