Woke up this morning to frost. The leaves on the tomatoes, squash, melons, potatoes, and beans are black. I didn't get one red tomato.
Sigh..............................
No red tomatoes for the whole season?jal_ut wrote:Woke up this morning to frost. The leaves on the tomatoes, squash, melons, potatoes, and beans are black. I didn't get one red tomato.
Sigh..............................
jal_ut wrote:Yes, the first frost signals the start of "Indian Summer", and we should have a couple more weeks of decent weather without frost.
The corn will make it. There is enough energy stored in the stalks to finish the corn even if the leaves freeze. The corn leaves did not freeze.
I leave the cover on the tomatoes except to pick what is ripe.
applestar, I did a little research on poly tunnels. The price astounded me. For the $50 for a ten foot by 18x12 tunnel.............. one better just buy food!!!
Maybe I could find some good long willow shoots and form them into loops and cover them with poly? I would like to make it large enough to let the plants mature in . That would mean about six feet wide and 4 feet tall. Hmmm, something to think about. I could get away with it here, I think, with the dry climate.
I imagine we had the same as you, Jal_UT. I tried to look up the last frost in May this morning, but I couldn't find it. 112 days sounds about right.jal_ut wrote:It has been a weird season. Cold through May and June, nothing got going good, then hot and dry for July. Not one measurable rain event in July. Yes, the frost came early. It snuck up on me, I was not expecting it or I could have taken some precautions.
We had 112 days frost free. Most years we get 120 and sometimes 130. One never knows.
There is a lot of wisdom in that.soil wrote:gotta love not depending on a monocrop! sorry to hear about your tomato troubles jal. some years are good for some crops. others good for other crops.
Surely the truth.Its a gardeners lot, we never know whats around the corner weather wise and early frosts are a killer!