Jack Frost Nipping at your Nose

The morning following Thanksgiving was ushered in with roosters crowing and cows mooing.  Nothing out of the ordinary there - except for the fact that it was cold.  It got down to the lower 20's last night.  You can see that the pasture has a nice coating of frost that shimmers and sparkles in the morning sun.

Maggie Mae is cold and hungry for breakfast

Chickens are scratching

After looking at the effects of the frost on the pasture, I wanted to check out the garden.  The basil did not do so well with the frost.  The leaves are burnt.  I'm glad that we made lots of pesto that we froze and dried lots of basil and froze basil leaves as well.  I wanted to make some basil infused olive oil, but it looks like I missed that opportunity.

The frost did a number on our basil

Fortunately, the cole crops (brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy, and kale laugh at the frost.  It doesn't seem to bother them at all.

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They aren't close to being ripe yet, but they've shaded out the rows, which is nice as I don't have to weed any more.

The cole crops unfazed by the frost

One of the items in the garden I was quite concerned about was the lettuce.  We made a real nice salad mixture for Thanksgiving using the various varieties of lettuce we have growing right now.  I really like the way this one looks.  It is one of several varieties in a Rocky Mountain salad mix.  It is green with maroon freckles and tastes as good as it looks.

Beautiful lettuce

The second variety in the Rocky mountain mix is shown below.  It looks like your normal leaf lettuce except it looks like it is blushing with light maroon to pink shades on the outer tips of the leaves.

We have numerous rows of Black Seeded Simpson lettuce.  This is a tasty lettuce that is superb for salads, garnishing or simply snacking on right out of the garden.

Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

And finally I have a row of Oak Leaf Lettuce.

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Why is it called Oak Leaf Lettuce, you ask?  Well, look at the leaf below.  It looks very similar to a leaf off of an oak tree.

Oak Leaf Lettuce

I enjoy eating a nice salad and after we clean up some Thanksgiving Day leftovers for a few days, we'll have salad on our menu.  Thankfully the frost didn't damage it.