I can’t even talk about the fact that Monday I saw a commercial not for Christmas shopping but for a countdown to a Christmas movie marathon or some such thing that starts Oct. 31 – but I will mention that I saw a recipe for Indian Summer turkey chili Tuesday.I think it should have come with a disclaimer that it cannot be made until we’ve had an actual Indian Summer. According to the definition handed down by the weather gods, the autumnal phenomenon is a warming trend that comes after a killing frost. I knew that.I’m not ready for a killing frost. Someone I know posted on social media Tuesday that 90-degree days are unacceptable in September. I disagree. Fall does not begin until Sept. 23, and I will soak up every last vestige of summer until then.I’ve also been seeing lots of pictures on social media of beauteous garden bounty. Baskets of tomatoes and green beans, piles of squash and fresh corn. I had none of that this year. In part because I didn’t plant most of that stuff but also because my garden was just pathetic.I have a container garden, which has always done really well. Maybe I ignored them more than I thought. Whatever the reason, all I got from three tomato plants and one pepper plant (I scaled down significantly) was one paltry bowlful of plum tomatoes and one green pepper. Even my parsley failed me this year – or I guess I failed it.That’s just it. I felt bad that my tomatoes were so sad and that I killed not one but two parsley plants (which usually grows in crazy abundance right through the fall). I feel like I let them down. I’m the angst-ridden gardener.If you, however, are like those posting pretty pictures on Facebook, you know there is plenty of summer left to be had at least in terms of the harvest. There is still squash coming in, cucumbers lying on the vine, beans hiding amongst the tangle of leaves you lost track of after the Fourth of July, pole beans if you like such things, corn and other lovely veggies.But you’re getting sick of them, aren’t you? Admit it. If you have to figure out what to do with one more zucchini you’re going to start mailing them whole to random people. And those carrots you thought would be so much fun to grow – actually that’s the one thing I miss. I’ve never had good luck growing carrots here, which is a shame because I love them best pulled fresh from the ground, run under the hose and eaten on the spot.If you’re tired of your garden produce, swap it with someone who is growing something else or, better yet, preserve it for those nasty winter days when you need a reminder that summer’s coming.Now you just need to figure out if you’re a canner or a freezer.Growing up, we were freezers. Best tip is to lay things out in single layers on a cookie sheet, let them freeze, then pile them into freezer bags. Date the bags and store them store them in a non-self-defrosting freezer. Self-defrosting freezers dry things out even when they’re well-wrapped. It’s why your ice cubes disappear if you don’t use them fast enough, though that rarely happens in our house because we have an ice thief. I make ice cubes regularly, yet whenever I reach in to get some, they’re gone. I don’t know how that happens.You can slice peaches, strawberries or zucchini for freezing. Lay out beans or peas or turn cucumbers into pickles, but not for the freezer, those would be canned and that my mom did do.You can can pretty much anything. My aunt does, my friend Shirley does. My friend Ben’s mom canned something like 50 jars of tomato sauce last weekend. That was actually a mix-up. Somehow she ended up with something like 10 cases of tomatoes, but what are you going to do? When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? Well, the same applies, if life gives you tomatoes, make sauce (gravy is for mashed potatoes and meat in my book). Or relish, salsa or soup and can it.But don’t forget to label and date the jars as well. Ben also told me a story about pulling jars of sauce out of the far recesses of his grandm