It's official. We've had frost.

I had my suspicions but it was confirmed as soon as I went outside and saw the Impatients all curled up and brown. We had frost.

A quick tour of the garden told me the harsh reality. Oh dear.

So now it's about saving what can be saved for seeds and pulling/mulching what can't be. Le sigh. It is a tough time of year for flower gardeners. You try to keep the momentum up by bringing in what you can and overwintering, digging up and drying out corms, preparing the ground for next spring and peaking at catalogues while you plan, but honestly, it is a bit depressing.

I remember my huge vegetable gardens of past and the seemingly endless bountys that needed to be processed, canned and frozen. It wasn't until mid-October that carrots and potatos were being laid in a cold cellar and the canning had been finished.

This year we planned a huge garden as well but the collosal flooding in our region, negated any thoughts we had of planting a garden.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/tranbc/5877588304/in/photostream/  Literally, we have a half dozen little, green tomatoes. Hardly, the bountiful harvest we anticipated.

The beautiful glads keep flowering and are never a disappointment. As a bit of the culinary connisseur (it was rumored) and I have come by a recipe for stuffed gladiola  recipe here that looks intriguing.  However, preservation for the long winter months evades my flower garden capabilities.