December 6, 2018

Good morning, it was nice not to see any additional mortality from the first freeze. It was also nice to see some of the kale “nubs” actually survive and are growing. My other fall greens are looking nice too. Things are coming back I just need patience.

Talking with a fellow gardener and we may have figured out why there seemed to be more damage with a 17 degree low than with thee 1.5-degree low back in 2011. The big difference was, this year preceding the freeze we had an intense cooling storm. There was a week of overcast skies with close to freezing precipitation. There was no heat in the soil. I expected to see all the uncovered plants fry (the 20-degree mortality rule), but I was surprised to see destruction in covered beds both with light and heavy covers.

One of the qualities of fabric is to maintain the present temperature of the soil. It is good insulation. Because of the cool down there was not enough reserve heat to buffer the plants from the 17-degree morning. No practical amount of fabric could have changed this. The fabric does not generate heat it only conserves it. Any well-established plants under the covers did fine, leaf burn but nothing serious.

On a heads up note, tomorrow there is expected to be a weather event to arrive. Looking at the low temps, this could have freezing precipitation. I mention this because it was a couple years back that a similar event happened. My bulb onions were germinating, but not fully extended above the ground. Cool damp conditions and 90-percent of the onion seedlings died from dampening off disease. Sooo, this time I have drenched the seedling bed with an organic fungicide and covered the bed with some greenhouse film. The idea is not to have another deep cooling of this bed and have the dampening off thingy once again. Ah yes, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Oh, and bye the bye, I did harvest a parsnip that had been sown last spring. I roasted it in a crock pot along with a couple butternut squash. It was tender and very sweet. The one I harvested was nearly a pound. I did harvest some for bags. These all appear to range in ½ pound up to 1 ½ pounds. Not as big as what I imagined. I think I will repeat this this spring. The germination was nearly 90-percent.

The garden continues to heal, greens harvests are on the increase. Please place your orders and I will fill what I can and only bill for that portion I do fill.