Light Frost Torment

[digitS']

Ice on the pickup again this morning.

This is now over a month of light frosts. It would take a lot of thinking to remember how many.

I feel guilty that I wasn't in the big veggie garden this morning if, indeed, the frost destroyed the cherry and paste tomatoes. Those plants still have quite a few tomatoes on them! If the Charentais melons have just a few more days ...

At least, I was there on the harder frost morning. The lesson of the "sheet of ice" was remarkable. Remember if you try it, too cold/too long will mean that the ice will break down the plants. I felt that they had just about had all they could take when I shut off the water. Even zinnias came through!

Anyway, it's like an older sibling, poking at you in the backseat - these unpredicted light frosts ...

Steve

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i've been surprised that we haven't had a real killing frost here yet. probably about 2 so far this season and only 1 left a sheet of frost on the car when i had to leave for work.

some tomato plants got hit with the frost but most have kept growing like nothing fazed them. i pulled all that i could from those plants weeks ago fearing the plants would have been completely dead by now. the only tomato i expected might make it through the cold would have been the Sub Arctic Plenty but after last year's growing i wasn't impressed with it's tolerance to cold and didn't think it would survive this year. so far it has along with my Egg Yolk, Red Zebra and small slicer types.

 

[Jared77]

We've had multiple frosts all week long. Rhubarbs still holding out but everything else is still holding out.

Veg gardens been done. About 2 weeks now. Weeds took over, mower blew a rod, (under warranty so new engine) and I cut the yard down back to normal. Spend 2 days raking and piled up clippings into the garden. Now just have to move 750+lbs of composted manure of manure and let Mother Nature do her thing, and I'll till it in the spring.

 

[thistlebloom]

It does feel like things are taking their time to wind down this year. Ordinarily there would be tons of things to cut down for fall cleanup, but most things are still looking good enough to leave up.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.....

... what does that even mean anyway?...

 

[catjac1975]

I still have squash vines producing. Tromboncino squash has been my best TEG find.

 

[Jared77]

I cut out early due to late heavy rains that caused a ton of splitting on most of my maters. The cukes swelled up and turned yellow, and the pole beans were not what I wanted despite the label.

I canned what we wanted and now it's a "compost pile" till spring

 

[Smart Red]

We've had light frosts in the area, and just a touch here and there in the garden, but almost everything is still going.

 

[journey11]

We had two frost warnings earlier in the month--much earlier than we usually expect them by about 2 weeks at the earliest.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

We had our first heavy frost yesterday morning. This is the best picture that I could get, it was actually taken about an hour after the sun had come out, so much of it was gone by the time I had grabbed the camera. Everything in the garden was killed except for the kale, even the peas and camomile.

 

[digitS']

Today's forecast low was the same low 40's as yesterday's. Before 4am, I checked temperatures at the school near the big veggie garden: 48° ..!

It's now 43° as the sun rises. I did doze off in the Lazyboy for awhile ...

The green tomatoes can come home this morning. I'm tired of the attention required, we are moving into a few days of rain and it will almost certainly freeze hard once that blows thru. Really, there isn't much out there even if yesterday's low didn't bring the curtain down, already.

Oddly, I have never known how much frost the celery root can take despite growing it for 6 or 8 years. It's in the more protected garden that has had repeated, "unmitigated" frosts. The leeks are there, also. Kale is in both gardens.

I'd hoped that the pretty blue flowers of the escarole would have time to set seeds. That won't happen. The snap peas still had a profusion of blooms the last I saw them.

One thing about finding nearby temperatures ... the weather service has thermometers they must hide, near and far! If they don't have a close station on their "more local wx" page, click the "Forecast Office." Scroll down and click the "select location" box.

You will find all sorts of places! Some may be oddly identified. I looked to see where "railroad bridge" was which was really tough because its only id was latitude and longitude (!) ... East Valleyway is misspelled! But, it wasn't hard to find the street. There are 2 "L's" in "valley," guys. None are closer than that wunderground.com school 2 miles away and that's not bad .

Steve