We had a night down in the low 20s, and the gardens are showing it.
So far, the $239 greenhouse has kept alive the tropicals inside it.
I took these pictures when the weather was still in the low 20s and the frost was on the ground. The mixed-up garden area was frosty:
And the ice crystals sparkled on the edges of the winter rye.
The strawberries have been trying to bloom, but the frosts keep ending that idea.
Before this hard freeze, we harvested all we could from the row gardens – and it was a good thing, too.
The cabbages can take some cold, but not this much.
We’re likely just to get rotten heads from these. Fortunately, we did get a decent harvest already, considering the season.
I expected a long, cool winter. When I planted in fall, I didn’t really think we would get much during the winter; instead, I expected most everything to carry through and really start bearing in March like it did last year. Instead, we got a long stretch of warm weather, followed by this brutal (for the region) overnight low.
I expected to lose the warm-weather stuff, so I chopped and dropped and mulched a few weeks ago.
I don’t know how the Brussels sprouts will do.
They take a long time and I am rarely successful with them.
The rutabagas, on the other hand, look much better – it appears the frost didn’t even touch them, as of this morning. They were covered with frost on Sunday morning!
This is my first time growing rutabagas. Other than terrible germination rates, they’ve grown very well.
Maybe this frost will finally make the apples drop their leaves.
The Grocery Row Gardens are well and truly done for the year.
That’s a far cry from back in summer, when they looked like this:
It’ll be back, though. We just need to be patient.
My older neighbor down the road told me that when we get a long, warm fall and the cold doesn’t get started until January or so, we can expect a cold, late spring. “Some of the worst freezes have been in March,” he told me.
So we’ll wait. Last year I started planting potatoes at the end of January. Judging by the weather right now, we should probably wait until February this year.
Live and learn. I am joyfully watching the changing seasons and learning to roll with them again.
While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
Cold and heat,
Winter and summer,
And day and night
Shall not cease.
-Genesis 8:22
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
12 comments
I am thankful for this update and the ability to watch you problem solve in this climate. For everyone who gets the occasional killing frost (as we do too sometimes), it is fun but ultimately less helpful to just watch tropical gardens that flourish and never die. But this, this is the real deal! And I can’t wait to hear more as you get better at working within it.
Thank you, hotplants.
Did you notice any microclimate areas?
Yes, come to think of it. Under the edge of the oak and magnolia things aren’t nearly as frosted.
We are prepared to get hit here in Lakeland Florida tonight. forecast was for 27 but is now set at 29. I wouldn’t be shocked to see 25. We setup burn barrels and smudge pots for the fruit trees. We are recording the event for our YouTube channel. I assume you will be even colder tonight than the last freeze. Hope all goes well.
We’re getting a hard freeze tonight for the first time in years. I planted Seminole pumpkins as a experiment. They were just starting to produce fruit. Ugh. Ill definitely be planting them again by the end of February.
I’m sorry – better luck in the spring!
David, I am in Mississippi on the same latitude with very similar climate. I always wait until February 15th to plant potatoes. I always have great success for the last 43 years.
Thank you very much, Dan.
Awww those pictures are SO sad. Reminds me of my garden every fall…and the 6 months of depressingly cold weather that inevitably follow. At least you only have to wait a month or two before you can plant again, so I guess the wilted cabbages aren’t quite as ominous as they are here.
I think I’ve finally seen my last New England winter as we’re (finally!) moving south next month. Going from the 5b/6a boundary to 7a. Not a huge jump, but I’ll take it. Maybe I’ll finally start to recover from the trauma of the constant threat of cold and can start to see the shorter winter as a nice hiatus from the garden instead of a long purgatory on the plant Hoth.
By the way, how long have you had that greenhouse now? That’s a decent size for $240. Do you think one like that is still available at that price? Because I’m dragging all my potted tropicals south with me and I would love to be able to put them outside, even if I still can’t plant them in the ground. Up here we get so much snow that any cheap greenhouse collapses under the weight of it in the first year. But with that no longer being an issue I’m willing to spend a little more for something bigger that will last a couple seasons.
The greenhouse is still intact, but I don’t think it will last super long. It’s cheaply made.
Yeah but on a rental you don’t have much choice…I don’t know of any decent-quality greenhouses that are easily disassembled and moved, especially not for under a grand. I feel like it wouldn’t be that hard to make a decently strong, modular frame out of pvc pipe and throw some plastic over it. But I doubt I have the skills to build one from scratch. All the affordable and temporary greenhouses I can find online seem to be made of Chinesium that buckles under the first snowfall.
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