Elm Street Gardens: The Not So Big Freeze

We finally had freezing weather here at Elm Street Gardens in Sparta last night. Actually, it was early this morning. I checked the local weather station (not far from our gardens) report about 6:20 am and was pleased to see it was only 31.2 degrees and not the 28 predicted for our low. However, I rejoiced too soon and by 7:30 am the temperature had dipped to 27.5 degrees.

Which was interesting and while officially we had a substantial freeze, my mid-morning tour of the garden showed most of the basil ruined as expected, but there were a few stalks of this treasured herb that were still bright green and not the sullen black of the ruined plants.

We had put row covers on all the tender greens, such as our lettuces, but I also noted a lettuce plant that had accidentally been seeded in a row of kale, looking just fine in the morning sun. Still it is too worrisome to leave such plants uncovered when a freeze is predicted. Nothing worse than waking up at 3 am worrying about all the tender stuff you want to survive.

And peppers and tomato plants in the two hoop houses did not suffer at all although we currently don’t have the doors at the ends of the houses closed. We had picked a fair amount of green tomatoes yesterday as well as tons of peppers, but apparently we did not need to worry about them – yet! Tomato plants in the outside beds did not uniformly hit the ditch, but most of them suffered pretty badly.

Although this event may seem mundane to those who are not so invested in growing, it is significant here on Elm Street. At least we don’t have to live with the anticipation of the first freeze of the season anymore. And now it is a fine sunny day outside with the temperature in the 50’s and no wind.

Suzy