Tennessee 2024 Garden

[Gary350]

After 3 days of 20° F weather and 1/2" of snow potato plants that looked like green mush after the first
freeze are now gone. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, plants have turned a dark green frozen color, it is still hard to tell if plants are dead. Yesterday I started to pick 18 cabbage but what can we do with 18 cabbage all at once??? Lettuce looks frozen also but I'm not sure it really is because Romaine lettuce did very well last winter in colder temperatures. Cilantro & carrots look frozen too but I think they are ok in the past they did fine is colder temperatures.

12 noon garden lettuce was good on a sandwich, no freeze damage.

3 pm no freeze damage. I picked 1 cabbage and several carrots for dinner,

[applestar]

Hoping for the best!

I’m afraid to check on my stuff….

[Gary350]

Today 2 pm I inspected garden plants, all the leaves feel solid, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, napa are good. Nothing feels soft an mushy like 1 night of 13° and 3 nights of 20° was too cold for the plants. I picked 1 Dutch cabbage and 6 carrots to make coleslaw. Wife said go pick 6 more carrots. 1 cabbage & 12 carrots makes a lot of very good coleslaw. I love to pick from the garden then eat it 30 min to 60 min later for dinner.
.

[imafan26]

Time to make cabbage soup

[Gary350]

It has been a week since we had 13°F and 15°F temperatures. Today from a distances, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, plants all cook BAD. Up close plants feel good and look better. Several broccoli heads look good a feel solid there appears to be no 13° freeze damage. Cauliflower plants appear to be ok also with no heads expected to start growing until Dec. 30. Dutch cabbage is good also, heads feel solid with no 13° freeze damage. It warms up to about 50° most days that seems to be warm enough to make broccoli and cabbage to keep growing larger. Carrots plants are laying down like they are wilted but up close inspection plants seems to have no 13° freeze damage. Cilantro plants look very good cold 13° freeze has don't nothing bad to the plants. Potato plants tops are dead but down deep under several inches of soil new potatoes are still growing larger. Potatoes will be ready to harvest Dec. 30. Crawling about in 32° mud & water to dip up potatoes will not be fun. Wait an see what our weather is doing the last week of Dec. new potatoes will be ok to stay buried under the soil until May if I need to wait that long. Nice thing about winter potatoes they can stay in the soil until we need some for dinner. Our soil never freezes more than 1" deep and new potato hills are 4" deep. I will leave broccoli in the garden several more weeks to see if heads grow larger, freeze will not be a problem until it get below 13° F and colder temperatures might be ok. Napa cabbage and Romaine lettuce are doing good.

[Gary350]

This morning I dug up 8 Kennebec potato plants and 1 French fingerling potato plants 2 weeks before harvest time. Our rain season has started we have another 5 days of rain coming starting today about 2 pm. First thing I noticed was, rain has washed down potato hills there is only about 1/8" of soil protecting the new potatoes from freezing. I have 6 lbs. of new potatoes and only 2 lbs. that were not frozen. If we were desperate for food I could cut the frozen parts off and save another 1 lb. of new potatoes. Wife is going to cook a few potatoes & carrots for dinner.

I can't decide if I want to dig up another 30 ft of new potatoes in the cold mud of forget about them?

[applestar]

Ouch. That’s a shame. I think in most cases, garden harvest that froze can be saved if the damage occurred in the last several hours or overnight. But it’s trickier when they need to be washed — and thereby, are defrosted completely.

It usually ends up becoming a question of whether you want to take the time and effort….


As for the ones still in the ground — if you know they’re still OK, and can put any kind of mulch over them to cover them deeper, you might have the chance to look them over again later?

[Gary350]

Ouch. That’s a shame. I think in most cases, garden harvest that froze can be saved if the damage occurred in the last several hours or overnight. But it’s trickier when they need to be washed — and thereby, are defrosted completely.

It usually ends up becoming a question of whether you want to take the time and effort….

As for the ones still in the ground — if you know they’re still OK, and can put any kind of mulch over them to cover them deeper, you might have the chance to look them over again later?

I dug up all the potato plants in the 30 ft row also soil is very soft easy to dig now we have about 60 lbs of new potatoes. The frozen places can be cut off and the good part of the potato will dry out and still be good. We already have too many potatoes so I listed FREE potatoes on market place and 3 people claim they are coming.

I gave away 60 lbs. of new potatoes. The people were very glad to get them.

[Gary350]

Wife is cooking something for dinner with our garden, green beans, corn, potatoes, onions, garlic, she wanted carrots too. Large carrots are hard to find among all the smashed down wet plants. This does not look like much to me but wife says, this is good.

[Gary350]

Romaine lettuce appears to die a slow 3 week death from 13, 15, 20° F temperatures. Outer leaves die first. Several plants rotted off and soil level. Some plants only lost the outer leaves. Several plants are growing NEW leaves from the center. We have had no temperatures below 23° in 2 weeks. I picked lettuce and cilantro for taco lunch.

Cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, outer leaves look dead but the main body and heads are good. My oldest son picked 2 cabbage yesterday. Cauliflower never grew heads seeds should have been planted 1 month before broccoli. Broccoli heads look good a week of 60° weather will be good for broccoli and carrots. There is enough cilantro to fill up 2 bushel baskets.

[Gary350]

Everything looks great!

If it’s “Early Dutch” they’re supposed to get to 6” but understanding is if it feels solid and temperature has gotten too cold, they won’t grow any bigger.

You risk them splitting from too much rain if left unharvested.

I think heads are as large as they will get. I have been leaving heads attached to the plants so they don't wilt. So far so good. If we have more weather 15° or below heads will need to be picked. I hope if there is no more killer freeze heads will stay good in the garden until April 20, we should have them eaten by then.