It looked like a winter wonderland out this morning. The sun's rays came over the mountain onto a blanket of sparkling white frost so bright it hurt your eyes to look at it.
It was, as my younger sister said, a "hard freeze" with a low of 25° F.
I'm thinking now that I probably got in a rush to get stuff planted again this year. March can be a cruel month for the garden.
The peas and Fava beans had already been nipped by frost a couple of nights before - nights when I don't think it really even got much below freezing. Knowing that it was supposed to be much colder last night, I decided I had better try covering a few things to see if I could save them.
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| Peas covered with various types of plastic containers. |
Thankfully the peas hadn't really started grabbing onto the chicken wire yet - if they had, I'm not sure how I would have covered them. But since they were still small enough to fit under something, I dug through the recycling bags and pulled out all of the coffee containers I could find (yes, we badly need to make a run to the recycling drop-off!). Between the coffee containers, some milk jug tops and some plastic boxes, I was able to get all of the peas covered.
I covered the snow peas, rhubarb and Swiss chard with straw.
The strawberries, Fava beans, asparagus and the east cellar bed were all covered with some of the old sheets I used last summer to shade the plants from the sun. One apple tree and the new cherry tree were starting to leaf out, so I thought they might both need to be covered too.
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| Young fruit trees, looking like Halloween ghosts! |
I couldn't help but think of Charlie Brown's Halloween costume after I got the trees covered.
The young leaves were really pulled down by the weight of the coverings, and I wondered if I was doing more harm than good by putting so much downward force on them. I think tonight I'll try covering them with an old feed bag instead.
I really thought the brassicas under the row cover would be fine. But when I peeked under this morning I was upset to see that no, they weren't fine at all.
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| Poor little broccoli plant. |
Now to be honest, I'm not sure if that damage happened last night, or it if happened earlier because the plants weren't properly hardened off. It might even be sunburn instead of frost damage. But I guess if they don't make it, I still have my "spares" that are still in pots in the house so I can just start over if I have to.
It's supposed to be colder tonight than it was last night, but the wind is supposed to blow all night so there shouldn't be a frost. I'll still plan on covering things up though, just in case the weatherman gets things wrong.
Out of all of the plants in the garden, the only ones that really don't seem to care about the cold are the alliums. The leeks, chives and garlic handled the cold without so much as a "brrrrrr!!!!"
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| The leeks didn't seem to be bothered by this cold snap. |
Does the cold temperature hurt the plants, or is it just the frost? I need to see what I can find out on that.
I think the carrots I planted at the end of February have finally started to germinate. I don't know if they could survive the frost or not, so I make a makeshift cover for them using some old fence wire and bubble wrap. It's kind of like a "mini-greenhouse" I guess.
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| Bubble wrap frost cover. |
I went ahead and planted another small block of carrots and covered them with the board to hold in the moisture.
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| More carrots planted. |
My sister had texted me this morning and I finally saw it and answered, apologizing for taking so long to get back to her. I said, "I decided I had to try to get some housework done instead of standing and staring wistfully out the window."
But by this afternoon, I couldn't take it anymore. I decided to brave the wind and the cold to collect a few more loads of cow manure and hay. Compost bay #3 had settled quite a bit, so I topped it up with some of the contents of bay #1. Wow...I've never seen earthworms in the compost bins like I did today!
The compost in bay #1 wasn't done yet, but it's getting there! I put the last of it into bay #2, then hauled in four more cartloads of manure/hay to bring that one up to "full" too. This time, I put in two watering cans of water for every cartload of manure/hay that I added. I wanted to be sure that the bay had plenty of moisture. I really need it to heat up to try to kill weed and grass seeds. I absolute do NOT want to get weeds and grass from my compost started in my garden!
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| Topping off compost Bay #2. |
I'm quickly running out of time to collect manure/hay though. The meadow buttercups have started to grow in the field, along with the little winter grasses. Once everything really gets growing, the collecting trips are over for the spring.
I also collected another load of mostly rotted hay and put it on my "Ruth Stout" area. I think I may end up using a tarp to "solarize" most of that area this summer to kill off the grass and weeds that sprout from the hay.
The work hasn't all been outside though. When I got groceries yesterday, I bought a small packet of organic rosemary. I snipped the tops off of each sprig and put them in some water to see if I could get them to put out roots.
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| Rosemary cuttings. |
If I can get them to live, the only herb I'll be missing will be the parsley: Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme....