Every year it seems that we clean up and tuck in the garden for winter before we get any killing frosts. Come to think of it, I've never seen what a frost or freeze does to a tender annual like basil.
This year we left the basil to the elements to see what would happen when we got a killing frost. Plus it was flowering and covered with bees, so we felt like it would be good for the local bee population to leave it.
Ho boy, were we rewarded last week!
Wednesday night we received a really hard killing frost. We've had a couple light frosts, but this bad boy took out darn near anything that isn't hardy.
WARNING: Plant carnage pictures below
Basil
'Thai Dragon' pepper
'Cal Wonder' bell pepper
Another bell pepper (Sage next to it is ok)
Potatoes
Potato mush
Nasturtium
The lantana in the backyard also got nipped as well. (Not pictured)
It has been interesting to see how the different raised beds have different microclimates. The bed above tends to be the coldest bed, whereas the ones parallel and closest to the South-facing stucco wall seem to benefit from the radiant heat it lets off. Although, last week's hard frost did affect those beds as well.
For more raised bed pictures, check out Raised Beds set on Flickr. It was great fun to go through it today and remember how far we've come!
We're supposed to have rain every day for the next 10 days (if it really happens, I will do a happy dance, videotape it, and post it here for you to see), so we won't be able to get out and cleanup. Chances are all these plants will turn to mush by then.
Dec 21, 2008
Garden Experiment
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9 comments:
Katie, looks like some of them will make it. Sorry it has taken me so long to comment on your comment. I have been busy writing and the holiday prep. has also impacted both my blog viewing and responding. My plan for the new years is to organize my time.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.
We got a couple of serious freezes over here in San Rafael. I couldn't believe the saggy blackness of the tomato plants that had been so valiantly hanging on.
It's kind of a relief. Movin' on.
Oh yeah, that frost/freeze sure make things look different overnight. Great post!
Yes! that is what happens with frost!! I hope the California fruit orchards were not hit too badly. The up side of a hard frost is that it kills many diseases and harmful insects. Look on the bright side, and have a great Christmas xxxx
I love that frost is such a novelty in your neck of the woods. I have seen dead basil and pepper plants more often than I'd like.
Alos, It is really good for your soil microbial activity to leave all your stuff in the ground. All that organic plant matter just lounging in your beds keeps weed seeds from germinating in the spring and keeps the good bugs happy.
I've seen that "look" many times. Pitiful isn't it. Interesting that sage withstood the low temps.
My peppers were similarly destroyed. But remarkably I still have chard!! I can't get rid of it.
Happy Holidays!
Sage is very frost hardy. We can usually go out and harvest some for our Thanksgiving stuffing. But I have many examples of dead basil, tomatoes, and peppers if you'd like to see what happens to them after they freeze. This year half of my basil died in the first frost and the other half straggled on for a few weeks -- in the same container.
We have a brick patio, walled in by a brick wall, on the SE corner of our house. Plants seemed to do better there in a frost just from the radiant heat, especially ones next to a big picture window. We think the heat from inside helped the plants outside....but not our heating bill!
Once we find our own place, we plan to try to create little microclimates to expand our gardening options.
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