If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

Friday, May 17, 2013

The garden has died!

Happy Friday Folks!

Just a quick update before I head outside to the garden.

We had a major freeze Monday morning and even though I had the garden covered up it was just too cold.  Everything died.  12 tomatoes, 6 cucumber, a zucchini and a squash.
I learned a valuable lesson when it comes to cold frames or hoop covers.
We had an all day rain on Friday and the hoops were open.  The raised beds soaked up all the moisture.  I knew it was going to freeze so I wanted to trap as much heat in  my hoops as possible to help protect the tender veggies.  Saturday and Sunday the sun was in and out and I put the hoops up to trap the heat.
Problem was it also condensates like crazy.  The inside of the hoops was like a tropical rain forest.  It was warm and incredibly humid.  I didn't think anything of it.  Well, when it got down to 27 degrees around 3am Monday morning all of that humidity froze inside of the hoops.  That humidity had also clung to the plants.  They froze as well.  I should have pulled off the covers on Sat and Sun to let the hoops dry out.  That may have helped.  Ah, the joys of gardening.

So today, thanks to my stock of seed grown plants, I will replant them all.  I lost about 2 weeks of grow time but oh well.  I also decided to mulch in between the rows instead of grow grass.  It will be easier to move mulch when (not if) I decide to move things around in the garden.  LOL

Last weekend I did a little more work in the garden.  I planted my asparagus.  2 rows 20 foot long.  It was hard work because you have to dig a big trench and mix up all  the existing soil with fresh topsoil and soak the roots in water and plant each one a certain way.  Now I have to wait 2 years to get a good harvestable crop but its worth it.  I love asparagus!  Here is one of the trenches

I also planted my sugar snap peas on the chain link trellis and the area that was downsized in the garden was re-incorporated.  I filled this with watermelons, pumpkins and sunflowers.


Each hole has the seeds of either a watermelon or a pumpkin in it.  Then I also tossed in a couple sunflower seeds in every hole.  There should be a ton of sunflowers all over the "patch".

I found this snake dead in the garden as well.  Don't know what killed it but it is a milk snake and they are pretty beneficial when it comes to eating bad critters.  Too bad he died.

I also started work on a sign to hang by my tomato plants
The top board will say Tomato and the bottom will say Town!



I also started building one of the gates in the fence.  Just a couple 4x4 posts for now.  Once I get everything settled I'll attach a hinged panel to them that will swing out and I can access the garden with my tractor if need be.  This gate is on the back side by the "patch"  The other gate will be in the front of the garden and will be an arbor with a swinging gate attached to it. 


That's all for now.  Be back later to catch up!
-Bushman

2 comments:

  1. Wow! You got after it!! Too bad about the freeze. I would have likely made the same mistake with the cold frames. What an odd year for cold weather, no?

    I can't wait to see how your vine and sunflower experiment turns out. Won't the watermelons and pumpkins cross pollinate to create mutants? I always thought they would.

    Wish I had known all that about asparagus. I have three little plants, this is their second season, so next year I might get to eat a bit. Ornery doesn't care for it much at all, but I love it steamed. Hope this is the last of your cold spells.
    tm

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  2. Sorry to hear about the bad weather and the dead plants. However, I'm pretty impressed with the back up plants and your positive attitude! Gross - SNAKE!!! We had one over the weekend at the lake. Nasty thing!!!

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