Garden Experiment

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.