January 11, 2018

Good morning,  Recently I posted on Facebook that I had discovered the limitations of Agribon fabric. This was misleading especially after giving it some thought and observing the trauma that uncovered plants received. It has taken a few days for this to become apparent.

This event was preceded by very warm weather. To expect the fabric to provide enough of a buffer from these extremes so that the garden would resume growth as soon as the cold past, was a bit much to expect.

In reality considering the situation the fabric performed remarkably well.

This reminded me of a gardening book that discusses this subject.. It is about gardening West of the Cascades. Covered in this book are all the growing zones in Western Oregon. Everything from the Oregon coast to the inland valley and finishing with the Alpine zone..

These areas are frost free,  to some freezing and then areas that remain frozen for a month or longer.

Included in this book are a couple of charts about selecting winter veggies and  a scale of winter severity.

This past event would be described  as a moderate freeze. This would be temperatures above  10 degrees but staying below 32 for a day or two.

The performance of vegetables during a moderate freeze would be described, "at above 15 degrees you begin to loose chard, beets and most of the other frost sensitive members of the cabbage family. Bassicas bred to overwinter will do fine."

The beets and chard that were exposed have all died. What parsnips that I have, all of their foliage was burnt back. There were a few chard plants that were covered that also have expired. These were on the edges of the bed and most  likely were in contact with the fabric. The freeze traveled right into the plants. 

Recently I had a discussion with a fellow gardener on this subject of abrupt temperature swings. He too has gardened in many different places and has never experienced elsewhere swings like what we encounter here in west Texas.

It is because of these swings that most plants do not attain full dormancy or are not fully hardened off. It is because of this, plants and especially veggies need to be covered.

It was good to have a few plants uncovered so as to remind me how well the fabric did perform.

Very nice with a week of warmer temps I have been able to harvest greens. My youngest chard bed I was able to clean up the burnt leaves. With luck and no more hard freezes, there will soon be harvest from this bed. My older bed of chard seemed to handle the freeze better.