Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

I'm always behind in writing about garden goings-on, so it's time for a real catch-up.  I'm sitting in an airport on the way home for Thanksgiving, with a three hour layover ahead of me, and this seems like as good a time as any.  The pictures in the last entry are about 3 weeks old, as you can see by the dates.  Since then a lot has changed, and it's not all good.

Boule d'or melons flowering, 11/7/12

First, a good thing: the melons began flowering on the 7th!  The flowers are cute, thumbnail-sized and bright yellow.  Because they're cucurbits (in the cucumber family), there should be both male and female flowers on the same plant, with the female flowers recognizable by the unripened ovary at the base.  I'm a little embarrassed to say I haven't been able to tell the difference yet, and keep forgetting to bring a Q-tip with me to hand-pollinate them, since I haven't seen many bees recently.  I've been feeling more and more like it's not too late for melons after all.

The night of the 10th, I was in another town about 45 minutes from my school, and where we were there was a forecast for snow.  I hadn't bothered to check the overnight forecast for my town before I left, and we got a frost--pretty unusual, but not unheard of.  I came back to A4 expecting to find all of my tender tropicals dead: melons, tomatoes, pumpkins, and maybe some of the bean seedlings too.  This is what I found:

My best tomato plant,
killed by an early frost, 11/11/12

and this... (note the thriving weeds in the background, completely unaffected by the frost)

Pumpkin killed by frost, 11/11/12

and this...

Two melons killed in early frost,
the one on the left stayin' alive

Blue jade corn maturing, 11/17/12

However, the other tomatoes, pumpkins, and melons survived with only minor damage.  A few bean seedlings had died in the night, and the basil plant on my porch had some frost burns, but most of my plants survived.  That's not as bad as I had feared.  The second-in-command tomato has flourished in the past 10 days, and is now on par with its deceased sibling.  The corn, carrots, broccoli, and peas were completely unaffected, and are growing steadily.  About a quarter of the peas have germinated so far, and while only 4 or 5 broccoli seedlings have come up, they're looking good with one or two true leaves each.

I had hoped to have some food from my garden to share with friends by Thanksgiving, which likely would have happened if the lettuce I planted had taken on the first try, but as it is, I think I'll be waiting a little while for anything edible.  It's hard being patient when I know how good a garden-fresh tomato or pea is, and when I've heard about the unparalleled deliciousness of garden-fresh sweet corn and can't wait to try it.  But wait I shall.  In the mean time, I've been making homemade hot caps for the plants out of old milk gallon jugs and anything else big enough, so I'll be ready when the next frost comes around.