Blast of Cold

Ice, Ice, Baby!

We had our first really cold weather of the season on. Notice the burn on the plants and the green mustard. It reached 27 F. at our farm with a strong 12 mph wind. We moved some plants in the greenhouse and covered some of the tropical plants. I was also letting the trial garden face the extreme weather to benchmark it as a learning opportunity. Everything except the mustard, garlic, carrots, and onions got some damage if not a complete kill. I really didn't think that snow peas would die. "Snow peas" for crying out loud, who named this plant? It is hard for the plants to bounce from 80 to 27 back to 80 degrees in just a week but that is what we have to deal with.

It looks like our wormery residents are not cold hardy as well. I didn't know that they couldn't stand cold weather. I thought that they would bury themselves deeper in the soil when cold weather approached. I now know this for a fact. Sorry guys. I hope my karma is not affected by my lapse of judgement.

We are gearing up for our first fresh market attendance. I am not putting too much hope for a good turn out this weekend. I was there last month and there were very few buyers and sellers. We also piggyback the same spot with the antique market which also happens once a month. They seem more organized than the fresh market people. I hope that this can take off. It would be a great venue for us to sell produce and mesh with our local neighbors. I think that we should revitalize our downtown Plant City and people should buy their produce closer to home thereby saving fuel and inputs and keeping the money flowing in our area. I hope this catches on. Think global, act local!!!