So I decided to uproot the garden this evening so the debris could ship out with the garbage tomorrow morning. We pulled up the tomatoes and got 24 cups of sauce put up in the freezer–as well as half a dozen red juicy ones sitting on the counter, the two or three Alden chowed down on while we were dancing to the blender and the batch of tomato cheese soup we had for dinner. I love my Blendtec!

Next we pulled up beets and radishes. The beets are bubbling away on the stove right now and I’ll throw them in the freezer later to put in my favorite smoothie.

And then there is the Big, Huge mistake… We had quite productive pepper plants this year. I stemmed and halved them. Then I made the dumb mistake of fishing through the bowl I had them in for any others I had missed. Oh. My. Goodness. I have already soaked my hand in milk with ice cubes for 15 minutes. It helped but the fire is steadily burning my hand off again. The good news is we are going to have a ton of roasted jalapeno, poblano and serrano peppers to make our life spicy.

Now, besides my red, swollen hand, I am trying to asphyxiate the whole family in a house filled with pepper fumes. Our lungs and eyes burn more the closer we get to the kitchen. Oh the joys of harvest time!