Hello Jack Frost
Posted on November 8, 2007 - Filed Under building, cucumbers, farm maintenance, frost, hedges, herbs, pecans, pickles, planting, tomatoes, trees, vegetables, weather
We got the first frost on Tuesday morning. I tried to prepare the best I knew how which honestly isn’t saying much! I potted a few herbs and harvested some more. I covered the most prolific tomato plants, the peppers, bok choy, carrots and some of the lettuces just because they’re so small. I left the rest to fend for themselves.
We’re facing the third morning of frost and here’s the results so far. Baby cucumbers don’t like frost. No pickles this winter. Tomato plants look pretty blasted. Even the ones I covered. The actual tomatoes still look good, but I picked some of the larger ones in the hopes they will continue to ripen. We’ll see how the rest fare. Garlic and leafy vegetables seem pretty hardy. The potato plants not so much, but I’m guessing the potato roots will continue to thrive underground? Basil is done, but parsley, sage, rosemary and oregano don’t seem affected. Carrot tops look a little wilty, but again, guessing the roots themselves are okay. Snap peas may pull through. I knew I was cutting it close by planting some of these foods for fall/winter, but it was a test and one which I will hopefully learn from.
Don’t think any less of me, but I almost felt a sense of relief knowing that with winter weather coming, I wouldn’t have to be concerned for long about tending the gardens. It’s a lot of work. Yeah, I know, I’m a wimp. I was thinking what if we depended upon the garden as our sole source of food. Or if we were real farmers and this was our livelihood (although I guess both of those examples are pretty much the same thing). Man, a killing frost would really suck. We’d be eating a lot of pecans.
But since this is still a hobby and not a livelihood, I can take a big breath and relax back into the planning of the gardens for spring versus the actual activity. Aaaaaaaah. Okay, enough of that. Time to start trimming trees, planting bamboo, building the new chicken coop, the goat shelter…
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