Saturday 20 September 2014

After the Frost


It's been quite a cool, wet summer this year in my area and it was topped off by a very early frost two nights ago.  The weather today almost seems balmy and the forecast for the next couple of weeks is similar.  Unfortunately, a brief dip below zero Thursday night killed off parts of my garden.

Just before the frost

The flowers were the most affected.  My tall cosmos didn't even have a chance to bloom!!  They are too much trouble to cover up so I took one last picture.  They are still standing but the leaves are now wilted and black.


Here is how they looked around mid-October last year.  So pretty and I'm so disappointed!!



 Same with the African marigold (shown in the main photo).  I had high hopes for these lasting through October ... I had such a big, lovely patch.


The Tarbais beans died as did the two remaining tomato plants I had left.  But there was so little fruit that I didn't bother to cover them up.   And there was no need to cover the broccoli and brussels sprouts - they can handle a light frost.



So could the carrots.


Unfortunately, I totally forgot about my miracle zucchini plant (no zucchini all year other than a single zucchini that I noticed a couple of weeks ago).  It's gone now.  As is the basil even though I covered it with plastic.


And I did cover the arugula and spinach and they are still okay.  And same with the parsley (wow, is it ever okay!).


As are the recently seeded beets which I covered as well.


I brought the potted geraniums inside but, for some reason, I thought the potted mint would be okay.  Not so as it is now mostly black.


The swiss chard was not really relevant to the frost topic as something nibbled it a few days earlier.



On the bright side, I can get several of the gardens cleaned up and prepped for winter much sooner than I had anticipated!  Was anyone else hit by an early frost?

2 comments:

  1. No frost here yet - Our weather in the last couple of days has been really good, but judging by the overall weather in the last few months, I wouldn't be surprised if we got hit before October.

    That's too bad about all of your lovely flowers. I too am looking forward to cleaning up the beds - even though we haven't had frost many of the beds, esp. the cucumber/squash & tomato beds, are in quite a pitiful state.

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  2. We missed the frost. We did get down into the 30s one night, but not low enough to frost. Which is good as I'm still hoping for my butternuts to ripen a bit more before I pick them.

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