My big vegetable garden is in a frost pocket. All the annuals have died with the exception of the old-fashioned climbing petunias. I found the seeds for that plant in a catalog called Select Seeds. It has reseeded for years.

Here it is, the week of Thanksgiving and many other places on-Island have yet to have a killing frost. Notice the two whiskey barrels at the entry to the Edgartown National Bank branch on the Edgartown Road. The geraniums are in full flower.

Also, at Seabreeze Vet, next to the up-Island gas station, there is a row of roses in beautiful flower. I think they may be the Knockout cultivar.

It is so beautiful everywhere. The maples, both the reds and yellows, are spectacular. Burning bushes are great. We do know they are an invasive species and will reseed like crazy. The nurseries no longer offer them for sale. Still, they are a vibrant addition to the fall landscape. Nothing, in my opinion, matches the fall color of the Callery pear. There is one at the corner of Spring and William streets at the First Baptist Church of Vineyard Haven. The Callery is a problematic tree. Michael Dirr says planting one is playing Russian Roulette with your landscape. It is brittle and prone to splitting at the base. The row of them on Clough Lane has several that have broken branches.

My forsythia is blooming. Who knows why. It’s quite lovely albeit odd to see fall-colored leaves with spring flowers.

I’ve been busy transplanting in the hoophouse. I started a whole package of lettuce about a month ago. I moved the babies around so they had more personal space. This time of year, with the fading light, is difficult for plants to grow. They tend to simply stay alive.

Just after Christmas when the light almost imperceptibly changes, they will take off. I am looking forward to nice salads at that point.

Determined to have artichokes next summer, I am trying various methods to winter over my dozen or so plants. Two were moved into the hoophouse, a couple covered with hay, some with Remay, and finally I put buckets over a few. Time will tell.

When I started this column in 2007, I spent some time talking about the political implications of our food system.

I believe one of my first columns was a rant about the energy used, not only to produces our food, but to transport it thousands of miles away. Many weeks I went on about genetically modifying our food crops especially the gene which allows huge amounts of herbicide to be used around the plant without killing it — the Roundup Ready gene.

The Oct. 30, Sunday New York Times had a front page article called Doubts About a Promised Bounty. Allow me to quote a few paragraphs: “Genetic modification has missed a basic problem. Both the U.S. and Canada have not had increases in crop yields or overall reduction on the use of chemical pesticides (as promised). Europe rejected the use of GMO’s and according to several independent studies has the same or better crop yields. Also, herbicide use has increased in the U.S. by 21 per cent. France, however, has decreased its fungicides and insecticides by 65 per cent and herbicides by 36 per cent.”

I could go on. I should go on, actually, so the situation which I hate to mention could be avoided.

After a week of no news after the election, I missed Rachel Maddow too much. The very first segment I watched was the ousting of Chris Christie from the Trump transition team. Again, you could not make this up. It seems in the early 2000s, Christie was a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. He went after a real estate developer. There were humiliating stories of prostitutes and video tapes, corruption and sleazy deals. The developer served a year in jail. He was (wait for it) Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, who is Ivanka Trump’s husband.

There are so many comments to be made about this story. But I’ll leave them to you dear reader.

I tried to be optimistic about a Trump presidency. Perhaps he would be humbled by the job, have a spiritual awakening or at least realize Hillary beat him by over a million votes.

Nope, he picked Steve Bannon. Lord, have mercy.