Good
morning, for starters, there are veggies!!! Seeing as how there is
another cold front on the way, this new one does not look as
“impressive” as last weeks, I erred on the side of caution and
made a light harvest so that even if things do not grow this coming
week, I will still have a harvest next week. I hope I have enough
veggies for all who desire. Please be watchful another arctic front
is due to arrive today with chances of freezing rain and snow
Thursday through Saturday with a slight warming on Sunday only for
another shot of Arctic air arriving on Monday and this will keep
temperatures down for most of the week. NOAA is showing deep freezes
for Friday night, along with Sunday Monday and Tuesday. Weather
Underground is being less severe with deep freezes only on Monday and
Tuesday. Needless to say bundle up keep warm and let's hope this is
not De Ja Vu all over again!
The
crispy critter bed of chard is a bed that is planned to be replaced
in the near future. I had left it uncovered through the Gallery Night weekend freeze just so I could see what a difference there is between covered and uncovered beds that go through two days of below freezing weather It is over mature, since it was planted 9 / 18/
2012. I like to replace chard beds every 6 to 12 months. I have the
replacement bed in place as shown on the blog site. After it went through the big chill I thought, this bed has the makings of a pretty cool experiment.
How
this little experiment is developing and what I hope to achieve. I
had the replacement for the crispy critter bed and I knew a strong
cold front was on its way, why not see what covered and uncovered
chard beds look like after a couple of days below freezing. After
this bed went through the freeze, I wanted to see how much more
punishment I could put this old bed through. I then cleaned the dead
off of these plants and covered it with greenhouse film. We are
entering into the cooler part of the year, I have been reluctant to
use greenhouse film over my hoops for fear of frying the veggies.
Enter stage right the above mentioned soon to be retired bed. As
shown in the blog I have covered the chard with a layer of Agribon 70
and on top of that is a layer of greenhouse film. As a control bed
to the west of the filmed bed (not shown) is a bed with just film on
hoops. This will tell me how much protection the AG 70 will give from
over heating. I only have one min / max thermometer and I will record
the 24 hour temp swings in both beds as I can. At 12:30 12/ 2/ 13
the temp read 82 under the covers and outside in the lower 70s and
it is clear. Latter in the afternoon I checked again and the temp had
risen to 101. A little latter there was some cloud cover and the
temp was back into the upper 90's
The
method of my madness. First there is no down side of losing this bed.
Secondly I have found greens covered with Agribon 70 during the
summer are cooled due to the reduced light transmission through the
fabric (Ag 70 transmits only 30% of the available light. I am hoping
for a similar affect with the fabric / film combo).
One
will note that I did not really put a lot of thought into this. It
came about as “I see an opportunity , let's give this a whirl”. I
have made a significant change to the position of the layers. The
plastic is on the inside and the fabric is out (blog site shows film
out fabric in). Like with summer greens under 70, I hope this will
also reduce the light / heat intensity too. I felt the film out
fabric in would act as a magnifier of the heat. I will set up a film
outside and fabric inside to the west of the film only bed. This will
let me know if there is a magnifier affect. I will include pictures
of these changes on the blog site.
My
big fear of using film is that I would need to vent the bed. Usually
this time of year, warming comes with breezes. Venting film and
keeping it on site could be a real challenge with the wind factor.
Soooo, in the name of trying something that I have a preconception
“that this will fail”, I am going to see if I can prove myself
wrong. I have proven myself wrong with the above mentioned fabric
during the summer. Who would think that putting on a parka in the
summer would keep you cooler? The bed was cleaned of frozen plant
material and covered with both layers on Friday November 29th.
Saturday the 30th was sunny and in the upper 60s to lower
70s. Sunday was in the 70s but became over cast and thus much cooler
in the bed. The blog pictures were taken Sunday afternoon. Weather
underground predicts temps in the mid 70's for most of the week.
These temperatures could end the experiment this week. One could
expect a 20 to 30 degree increase with the greenhouse film but how
will this play with the fabric? My control bed and reversed layers
bed will help determine this.
I
am going to leave the fabric / film cover on 24 /7 only taking off
the covers to work the bed such as watering, weeding, aphid abatement
and harvest. I also plan to measure off an equal distance in another
bed of chard that is mature, unlike the young covered chard on the
blog site. This mature bed is covered with just 2 layers of AG 19. I
will then weigh harvested greens from both of these beds to see how
these amounts may differ. I feel that this could really revolutionize
my winter gardening. I have noted the three things that cause plants
to go dormant in the winter. (1) light levels below 10 hours, we
never are below 10 hours here in Alpine, Texas. (2) air temperatures
below 50 degrees, winter temps average in the 40's which cause (3)
the soil temperatures to fall below 50.
I
have noted that the winter average temperatures are in the forties.
This should not be a huge obstacle to over come in order to get the
air and soil temps above 50. If the soil can be warmed, then the
night time temps within the covered bed should be able to stay above
50. This would be due to the radiated heat from the soil. Unless the
chard gets fried I plan to run this experiment through February. This
will be interesting. I plan to update the blog with weekly up dates.
Yes this will be interesting!
One
last note, when I changed the film / fabric layers on Tuesday, I
really noticed a dramatic recovery of the chard with in. Mature chard
such as these develop stalks from weekly harvest. These stalks become
vulnerable in deep freezes. I noticed that some of these stalks had
frozen and are dieing back. On most of these I am seeing new growth
forcing from the bases( a much preferred growth location). I also
noticed that the growth rate far exceeds the fabric only beds. The
100 degree heat appears to not have harmed the recovering chard. So
it looks like the game is still on.
No
new veggies in the garden to harvest. Broccoli,and cauliflower are
growing quite nicely. I expect harvests to begin in the new year,
Cabbage may be harvested before the end of the month. Next week I
might start harvesting gourmet baby parsnips. I need to be sure to
harvest the bed out before they resume rapid growth in the
spring(they become quite woody). Peas are about 6 inches tall . I
hope they keep this size through December and start to bloom in
January. We will see.
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