Surviving the Arctic Blasts

We seem to have grown somewhat complacent with our balmy winter weather over the last few years.  Previously, we had a couple of light frosts do deal with.  This year we have had a different scenario, and it's only mid-January.  A few days of hard freezes have had an impact. 
We diligently protected the greenhouse and field with an all-hands-on-deck approach by Jenn, myself, and the kids.  We covered the warm weather crops including the zucchini, eggplants, and sweet potato with frost cloth that provides a few degrees of protection.  Think of this as a "snuggie"  for the veggies.  I assumed the cool season crops like cabbage, kale, bok choi, peas, etc. would be able to make it through unprotected.  Most of the veggies were fine; we did get some freeze damage on the tops.  The eggplant were winter pruned about three inches, any strawberry fruit turned black, and the cole crops sustained frost damage. Even the cabbage burned and I lost a new planting of them.  Next time I will cover everything.  It is always a mystery how the weather is going to affect our crops.  There are several tropical trees at my office (mango, lychee, starfruit)  that were not affected at all. 
We will need a little time to grow out of the damage.   When we have a week like the previous one, crops are either negatively affected or just sit idle until it gets warmer.  It's like hitting pause for a week.   Growth resumes later.  My hope is that we will have warmer temperatures, but the forecast suggests another cold blast is on its way.
The good news is that we still have sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers growing when neighboring crops froze.  Last week I picked the first ripe cherry tomato.  This week I picked four.  A few weeks from now we should be picking for all our farm members.