Jack Frost Nipping

[tjg911]

just had a second scattered frost saturday morning. this is twice in the same week and it's a bit early even on saturday for frost. both on sunday and yesterday my garden has escaped any frost which is good as i still have peppers that need to turn red, basil and butternut squash the latter ususally being harvested by 9/15 but this year i'm trying to get it to ripen before frost/freeze.

i've been fertilizing the butternuts and some cabbages that are just starting to form heads every week hoping that speeds their growth. the cabbages are shaded by broccoli plants and don't get sun until just after 10:30 so they get about 5 to 5 1/2 hours of very weak sun a day, when the sun shines. it seems hard to believe that cabbage seeds with 50 dtm started on 8/1 are struggling to mature today.

the foliage is turning a good 7-10 days early around here. it's surprising how many sugar maples are orange and red a week ago. the peak should be before columbus day which is typically the peak here.

tom

[tomakers]

32 degrees in my garden Saturday morning. That's about it for me this year. I did get a second tomato that looks like it escaped the LB, but I don't know which one it is as my wife picked it and didn't pay any attention to which plant. Two tomatoes for a year. This is a new low for me. Anybody got less production? Come on, somebody make me feel good.

[Wi-sunflower]

Tom,

Don't worry about those broccoli or cabbage plants. They will do just fine even if the temps get into the high to mid 20s. They will actually taste better after they've had a frost or 2.

I've picked broccoli and cabbage as late as Dec here in Wi in a year when we had a fairly mild start to winter. I've picked brussel's sprouts in late Jan, even after snow.

The trick to most of those cabbage family plants surviving is for the temps to only stay below freezing for a few hours and then get over 32 again. I've had sprouts survive a few hours in the high teens. But they will kill off at a higher temp, but below freezing, if it stays there for several days.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm reading this thread because I heard the FROST word on the radio this morning. There is a scattered frost warning for the counties west of me for tonite. I'm fairly close to Lake Michigan (about 15 miles) that USUALLY we don't get the really early frosts. I'm also on somewhat higher ground. But our temps are only supposed to be in the 50s for most of this week. It's not even that right now.

I too am hoping for a later frost as I have lots of winter squash that is late due to not enough heat this summer. And lots of tomatoes that are too green for seed saving yet.

I've given up on the watermelons altogether. I picked 5 or 6 for a family picnic last weekend. I used my usual criteria for picking including the thumping method. All looked and sounded ripe but when we cut them only 1 was worth eating. I'm not going to risk selling melons that the people won't like at all.

Hopefully we have a better "summer" next year. So much for all the hype about "global warming". We sure didn't see any warmth at all this year.

Carol

[tjg911]

thanks carol, i have had broccoli and cabbages survive low 20's many times. my concern is for the unripe butternut, i know they are not going to survive a frost so i hope they'll ripen before the garden is hit with frost, i've had 2 scattered frosts but the garden has been spared so far. also i have a lot of unripe peppers i want to have turn red but if a frost is going to hit hard and i know the garden will be hit i can pick and use the peppers as they are.

my concern for the cabbages is that they are just starting to head and with the shorter days and being shaded on sunny days until 10:30 (and that is increasing later as the sun goes south each day) i want these to fully ripen so i can take them out and rototill the garden by the 3rd week in october so i have about 3+ weeks.

tom

[barkeater]

It did drop to 30 Sunday morning, but it was a light frost. Everything important was covered, and only had scattered dead squash and cucumber leaves.

But, now there are SNOW SHOWERS forecast Wednesday night! Nothing's covered, and I won't be back home until Friday night. My only hope is if the temps only go to the mid 30's as forecast. I'm more worried about Thursday night, as the sky is supposed to clear after midnight.

[tjg911]

down here i give up by 10/1 whether there's a frost or not. i prefer to continue to get tomatoes and sometimes i do until 10/15 but by late september and especially in october they just don't taste right anymore. they are off and i attribute that to the fact that temps are often in the 40's or 30's at night and even in the day the temps can be below 55 degrees sometimes. you're way up there, i forget the town but between lattitude and possibly elevation i'd think your season is already over based upon my tomato taste down here.

tom

[barkeater]

The taste will have seriously dropped off with the next batch I hope to pick, but these are the ones I depend on for canning for sauce, juice, etc. I've put up only 4 quarts so far;-(

[Wi-sunflower]

Well we weren't in the frost warning area for Tue nite, but we DID get hit. And then again more widespread last nite (Wed). If we had had a bit of warning we could have put the sprinklers on a few things. I just love it when the weathermen get the forecast wrong -- NOT !!! It's too bad that THEIR livlyhood isn't involved with getting it right.

Oh well, so much for the tender things for this year.

Now I will be able to really concentrate on picking up stuff for seed saving. I wasn't able to get pics of everything before the plants died, tho I should be able to get some pics of just the fruit.

Carol

[TZ-OH6]

The forcast last night said 33F, I woke up at 6:30 and the internet said the Temp outside was 36F. I walked out to the garden and the latch to the fence gate was iced over and the dew from the grass iced up on my boots. The only thing left in the garden are peppers and they were definitely frosted, but planted so close together/bushy that only the upper young leaves semed to have been killed.

The past two weeks were cold rain, followed by wind storm followed by frost. Luckily[?] the late blight had killed off the tomatoes weeks ago so I wasn't rushing to pick.

[barkeater]

Driving to work this morning from Plattsburgh, Looking to the west there was snow on Lyon Mountain. Then I checked online for my home in VT, and it looks like there were snow flurries for an hour after midnight, but the temperature only dropped to 38.

So when I get home this afternoon, anything mature green gets picked and brought inside. They must have had a tough time this past week: heavy rain to start, then cold wind and sprinkles, then 2 straight nights down to 38 with a high of 43 in between, ending with a little snow.I'll be putting up a lot of sauce next weekend.

I'm not worried at all about my hot peppers, I've seen them go through a good frost many years with just burned top leaves and just a couple yellow tops on the outermost fruit. I do have dill that is 5 feet high nearby, but I don't know if there is any frost resistance there.

Kind of sad though. Feels like the garden barely got started and it is all over already, except for my carrots.

[Wi-sunflower]

All that rain should have helped at least a bit with the frost protection. We usually don't frost if we have had a wet spell right before.

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough rain before the cold, but NOW we got a lot (1.12" last nite) and will probably get more for the next week.

But the eggplant and hot peppers were on the high point of our farm and only got the tops nipped. The fact that the area is a bit weedy again sometimes helps keep the frost a bit higher off the ground.

Sad is right. A lot of my stuff that needed HEAT just didn't do well at all this year. It seemed like we went from an extended Spring to an early Fall. Never did get a nice Summer at all here.

The worst is my watermelons. We grow about 2 acres of the small ice box type melons. Sugar Baby, Siberia and Crimson Sweet types

We had poor/slow germination due to the cold June. Lousy set for no apearent reason other than cool weather. The neighbor has bee hives just a couple hundred yards from the field so that wasn't it. Then sloooowww to ripen. Of 6 I picked for the family picnic, only 1 was decent enough to eat. So we aren't going to bother to pick any for market as it would be too hard to tell if any were good or not.

But we had some great Broccoli and cabbage this year. Some 3 lb heads of broccoli and 12+ lb cabbages. And that stuff is still growing out there, tho slower now.

Carol

[Granite26]

Wednesday early am my growing season came to an end here in western WI. 21 degrees was the low. I had covered some Black Cherry plants that still had many yet to ripen toms and even those plants were hit.

[mjc]

Originally Posted by Granite26

Wednesday early am my growing season came to an end here in western WI. 21 degrees was the low. I had covered some Black Cherry plants that still had many yet to ripen toms and even those plants were hit.

When it gets that cold, covering just isn't enough...a supplemental heat source is needed...even milk jugs full of water could do enough, along with the cover.

[Lilypon]

Seems mighty strange to this northerner that points way south of here have already received frost. Waaaaaay up north I know Alberta, northern Quebec/Ontario, and the Maritimes have had frost but most of the Great White North hasn't yet (and now that I've typed the above I better pull the last of my tropical plants in).

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by barkeater

Driving to work this morning from Plattsburgh, Looking to the west there was snow on Lyon Mountain.

yikes! lyon mountain, i've been there. around may 1974 we drove to chazy ny, a friend's family had a camp up there. i remember ellenburg, altona but not sure what town we actually camped in. we went to the iron mines and drove on the iron dust desert then climbed part way up mt lyon. we had a good view of chazy lake. i still have pictures of our campsite and the hike up lyon mountain.

years later i was in mooers ny and drove down to our campsite in the woods and actually found it... 11 years later! the road we drove in on was totally over grown with small trees in the original road. today i could never find it.

tom