The first frost was forecast to hit last night, so we covered as much as we could, focusing on the tomatoes, summer squash, and some of the bush beans. There wasn't much we could do to protect the winter squash in the "jungle" (East garden). The plants are too sprawling and frankly, we don't have that many old sheets!
These pictures were taken around 8:00pm last night:
The first thing I did this morning was look out of the window. There were thick, white sparkles on the sheets covering my plants. Arhg! I took a quick look around the yard. Not too closely, mind you, as I still want to maintain a certain degree of denial. I have a feeling the winter squash (North Georgia Candy Roasters) plants and my beautiful dahlias all got zapped. Time will tell; the sun will be fully up in an hour or two.
These were taken around 7:30am this morning:
Carrot tops
"Illumination" Zinnia
Frost-tinged winter squash leaves. Uh-oh. :(
One of the dahlia plants, still in a bit of shade.
12:00pm - I spent the last hour pulling out and composting the zapped North Georgia Candy Roaster vines. Two small squash had sections on them that were frozen, so those were composted as well. Here is what I ended up with. The vast majority are much smaller than this squash's potential. These could have used another solid 3 weeks of warmth and sunshine. All are still pale yellow and their skin is extremely soft - softer than than skin of the zucchini when we harvested it. I have them set out on the step in the sun and hope that they will cure.
The zucchini plants were zapped, as were the tips of almost all the tomato plants even though they had been covered with sheets. Strangely enough, the Early Prolific squash plants at the back of the house made it through the night unscathed. It looks like several days of rain are headed our way at the end of the week, which means I will have to bring the dry bean pods indoors even though it is pretty early to be harvesting those, too. (If they get wet for a prolonged period of time at this stage, the beans sprout in the pod and/or develop mold).
No leisurely entry into September this year!
What an enormous amount of work involved preparing for the frost! Looks like you've been called upon to do this before, over the years!
ReplyDeleteRead the Carrot Cake Jam recipe on Bernardin's website. Sounds like way more than enough sugar. Are there any guidelines for reducing it? Do you have any experience with this? Would love to hear, Dawn.