Brrrr!

We got through another week miraculously without loosing our tomato crop. The peppers, zucchini, and eggplants got hit a little harder but the tomatoes still look great. I was driving out to the farm last Saturday when the low was supposed to be in the upper 30's and there was frost everywhere and I was beginning to panic. I was expecting the worst. When I got to the field all the plants had a very beautiful coat of crystallized ice on the leaves and I really started to panic. My first thought was,"What happened to the upper 30's?" My next thought was, "I have got to wash off this ice and protect the plants." I ran for the hose and began pulling it towards the rows of tomatoes when it got caught on the pipe and it snapped off below ground. Now I've got two major problems; frost on the plants and a ruptured pipe. I am really panicking now. My next thought was turn off the pump (because of the broken pipe) and get the 100 gallon sprayer and spray off the plants with water to melt the ice. I run to get the tractor out of the shop and pull out the sprayer and run back over to the pump and turn it on so I can have water to fill the spray tank. After the sprayer is hooked up I drive over to the spray filler and pull up under the pipe. I look back and the spray tank is not behind the tractor. It is about 50 feet behind me. I drive back around to go hook up again and notice that the pin had come out of the tractor because it had bent out of shape. I get another pin and repeat the process. I get the sprayer under the pipe, fill it with water, and try to start the sprayer. The whole time I am thinking that I need to get the ice off the warm season plants as fast as possible. I pull the starter cord and nothing. I pull and pull and pull and nothing. Now I've got no other back up plan except prayers. I drive defeated back to the shop and park the tractor. I walk back over to the plants and walk among the icy leaves. I reach down to touch a zucchini leaf and it cracks and breaks where I touch it. Now I pray; this is my plan C. There is nothing left for me to do but leave everything to a greater power. This is also the first day of pick up so I begin to harvest. I keep looking back over to see how the tomatoes are doing. The first signs of cold damage are a droopy, watery appearance too the affected leaves. It never shows up. I watch as the sun melts the ice off the plants and it changes into dew. Still to my amazement no damage from the frost. After seeing the amount of frost on the leaves and seeing the zucchini leaf crack in half, I thought we would have extensive damage on the warm season plants.

I learned a few things that morning. Ice apparently can form even if the temperature doesn't get to 32 F. Even if the temperature will be in the high 30's I still need to protect the plants. And most of all I learned that small miracles can occur in our everyday lives to which I am very thankful.

We had a smaller than usual pick up this last week. I started planting a bit later than usual this year to avoid some of the higher fall temperatures we were experiencing and now the cold weather has been slowing growth. The oranges will be getting sweeter by the day now with the first frosty weather. I was able to cover the warm season plants with frost cloth and it has been money well spent. It has done a great job of keeping the plants above the freezing point except where the plants touch the cloth. I pulled it off the tomatoes last week fully expecting massive frost damage as my min/max thermometer at ground level read 24F (I am not sure if this is accurate), and to my astonishment only minor damage to the outer leaves had ocurred. I am hoping that we will be able to harvest our beautiful tomatoes. They are the best ones that we have grown and I would love to see them in our members baskets.

Due to the slowness of growth, we had to skip a week. We should have mustards, napa cabbage, and tomatoes shortly. Our tropical roselle plants are frozen out. This was a trial last summer and they worked out nicely. I am looking forward to planting them again in the spring. I just tried the leaves and they taste great too. I can't wait to throw them in a salad with their cranberry taste and reddish color.

Another week few days of freeze this week and the susceptible plants are tucked into their beds with cloth. I hope we can get through it well.

We are also predicting some exciting news for our next post!