Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Gardener's F-Words
Frost.
Freeze.
Flurry of frantic activity following frost forecast.
And then nothing much happened.
This all began on Saturday. I started cleaning up the potager because I wanted to use the space to plant garlic. I had to pull out fully functional tomato plants to make room, incurring a great deal of mental anguish in the process. But later in the afternoon when I checked the weather forecast, patchy frost was predicted for Sunday night. OK good, I thought, then it's time for the tomato plants to go anyway. I also picked all the ripe red peppers and a few green ones to put in the freezer.
The next day, Sunday, the weather forecast had changed to widespread frost. Now I had to decide what to do about the pepper plants, and whether I wanted any more green tomatoes. I ended up picking most of the green peppers and tomatoes, and covering a few pepper plants with Agribon. At that point I had to leave the potager and return to northern Virginia, and I always ignore the first frost forecast in northern Virginia.
The next morning, Monday, the weather forecast contained a Freeze Watch. Then, that afternoon a Freeze Warning was issued - the forecast wording mentioned a hard freeze. Well, I thought, maybe they're serious this time. So I brought all the potted plants into the garage and snipped some cuttings from some Cupheas which were planted in the ground.
So, imagine my surprise this morning when not even the basils showed any frost damage. This was in northern Virginia - I won't know how things fared in central Virginia until the weekend.
In the meantime, I have lots of green tomatoes to use up. We're going to end the tomato season the way we started - fried green tomato BLTs! (And green tomato chutney, and green tomato salsa, and ?)
And lastly, a nice f-word: Fritillary.
They were fluttering around as I was pulling out the tomato plants on Saturday. The Verbena bonariensis was still blooming and attracting butterflies, if you can believe that.
12 Comments:
Same here. We cleaned up and carried in all the tender indoor plants which had grown considerably and was very heavy only to find that there was almost no frost - mostly only on rooftops. Even the impatiens which are usually the first to go remain unscathed. Yesterday I did notice slight frost burn on one ageratum plant but nothing else. Sounds like a complaint but it's not. Nice to still have flowers this late in the season. I only hated to carry all the heavy pots indoors but it had to be done soon anyway so now I'm ahead of the game.
I'm glad you missed the frost this time. What surprises me is how many plants survive a hard frost. I am definitely planting more gazanias, nicotianas and stocks next year. Mine are still blooming ... after a night of frost, they look as if they've died off, but as soon as it warms, they perk right up.
Ki: Yeah, I guess it's good to have the work done before it absolutely has to be (in gardening as in everything else). I really hated to pick the green tomatoes and peppers if I thought they'd have a chance to ripen. I don't see any frost in the forecast for the next week or so, and that suits me just fine :-)
Kate: That's interesting about the gazanias - they look so tropical that you'd think they'd melt on the first cold night. I hope mine keep going a while; I've enjoyed having them this year.
Amazing how long butterflies hang around, isn't it? It seems that moths are even more hard-core: as I left work last night I could see my breath, and moths were flitting around the lights in the parking lot! (Slowly, but flying all the same...brrr!)
Looks like the green tomatoes were destined to be picked, what with the forecast playing truant!
Thank God that butterflies cannot read weather forecasts:-)
Our tomatoes were too lazy to produce even green ones, so no Kathy Bates imitations this year!
Ki's comment makes me wonder whether our plumeria can even fit through the door anymore! We'll probably have a couple of weeks before we make that attempt.
Have you seen the butterfly houses sold at nature stores and some garden centers? They have slots in wood where the butterflies supposedly seek shelter. Maybe there are places like this around your garden, Entangled, where your lovely frittilaries can hide during short cold snaps.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Lisa: Those are some very hardy moths!
Green Thumb: Now I'm wishing I'd picked all the tomatoes and peppers because the ones I left standing did freeze. Ah well, it was a very good season here even so.
Annie: When I pulled the (ineffective) Agribon covers off the frozen pepper plants yesterday, I found a very lethargic common buckeye butterfly hiding underneath. I guess it doesn't take much shelter to keep them alive. I've looked at those butterfly houses and wondered if the butterflies would really use them - I'm sure if I bought one it would probably just host spiders or something instead.
Gardener's F~word's ~Love that!!And you are so right!
This post was a great read!
Nice photo of the Fritillary!
We haven't had a hard frost yet here...but I have been frantically active..I know it will be soon! :(
I'm just happy to still have a few roses blooming in November..:)
Cat
Yeah, I succumbed to that threat, too. Except for the Christmas cactus--I left that out on the porch to chill for a few more nights. I haven't gotten any blooms from it in the past two years so I figure that I'll cool it down, darken it up and then put it into sunshine to see what it does.
Sometimes I wonder what our weather people would do if they had to tone everything down a notch. Last week, for example, the story was about the "Deep Freeze!" that was on the way, with temps in the lower 20s this week. It's getting chillier, but the closest we'll get to the 20s is an overnight of 34 or something like that--not quite the "Arctic Blast!" of their claims.
Another F-word: forecasts!!!! I've long since given up on them and go with my gut instinct that proves to be far more reliable. ;-)
OMG! Thank you for reminding me about garlic!!
Catherine: Things are still green and growing in northern Virginia - we got frost in central Virginia but I still have zinnias blooming there!
Blackswamp Girl: Mentioning Christmas Cactus made me nostalgic for the 1970s houseplant craze, so I decided to see what Jim Crockett has to say about getting Christmas Cactus to rebloom. And he says...it's both temperature and day-length dependent. If the plants get enough cool nights (50-55 F) then the day-length doesn't matter, but otherwise they need at least 13 hours of dark at night to make them form buds. FWIW, he also says to keep them on the dry side until you see flower buds.
TV weather - blech! I hardly ever watch anymore.
Yolanda Elizabet: You are so right! I may do a post about that.
Sylvana: You forgot garlic?!?!?
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