During the winter time I cook.
Before the first frost I pick the largish tomatos and I cover the plants. The tomatos, if they are large enough, will ripen on the counters. And, the tomato plants wither will or will not survive the first frost: they might give me more tomatos and they might not.
There is a man in Maine who sells vegetables in the late fall, long after everything outside is dead. What he does, is, he covers the growing beds with 3 layers of plastic and he moves a greenhouse over the top as well. Last year I tried this in my home-made greenhouse and it really works! I picked the last of the beets in January, and it had gotten perhaps as cold as 10 degrees F (-12 celcius). Some of the beets had frosted on the very top but most of the vegetables were sound and good.
I do not have anything in my greenhouse this year that I would want to do that with, but I have an outside bed of swiss chard and another of kale. I might try just throwing several layers of plastic over the bed and seeing how well that extends the growing season. . His website is here:
http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/
AND! I saw a recipe that sounds excellent, and the vegetables are all found in my garden!
You start with chopped bacon ( he did not say how much but I suspect one pound???). Heat it slowly until the fat is rendered out and the bacon is crispy. That would be our American bacon that has a lot of fat in it.
Add a chopped onion and 3 cloves of garlic. Sweat the vegetables gently. Then add a chopped tomato and heat. Season.
THEN add in a finely diced squash (I am going to omit this because otherwise the family would not TOUCH the dish).
Then add swiss chard (again he did not say how much but I intend to add lots, and I will also try this with substituting kale). After that is cooked down add 2 teaspoons of cream and 1/4 cup wine, and serve over pasta.
I THINK that I can use this recipe for a dish of cooked greens instead of using it as pasta sauce, and I believe that my family will eat it. I am the only one who likes greens but everybody likes bacon, and they just might eat this. My entire family operates on the philosophy that bacon makes everything better!