The Modern Victory Garden

We have had a long string of record setting cold days this past week.   Approximately 10 days of over night lows of 18 degrees or lower and day time temperatures that did not make it up to freezing level.   The coldest temp I observed at our place was 12 degrees.   While we get these cold snaps occasionally, they usually happen in late January and early February – not in December.   I was not as proactive in response to the forecast warnings as I should have been.   I missed my opportunity to put some grow tunnel covers up over the outside beds at the outset of the cold snap.   There really are not very many crops in the outside beds that are not winter hardy and/or belowground in soil storage (carrots and parsnips).   However, by not covering the semi hardy crops I pretty much sentenced them to death by freezing.   I have been going to work and returning home at night in the dark, so it was not until Saturday morning that I was able to make a good assessment of the damage.                                         

The celery had been going for an extremely long period of time this fall, but the extreme cold (and for a period of many days) definitely finished them off.      

The lettuces are similarly (not surprisingly) completely taken down by the freeze as well.   The kale behind them looks a little ragged too but holds the promise of a potential bounce back.

The brussel sprouts have just a few more harvests of sprouts left on them.    They were pretty frozen on Saturday morning but are such hardy plants that I was not despairing of them being down for good.             

This afternoon (Sunday) the temperature actually moved up to 40 degrees and while the ground is still frozen solid, the plants had a chance to unthaw.     As I expected, the brussel sprouts lost a few of the lower leaves, but the sprouts are fine and I was able to harvest a nice amount for dinner this evening.                          

The kale plants bounced back too.

And the January King cabbages are okay as well.                              

These are a really tough cabbage plant and are excellent for over wintering as a result.    The jury is still out on the Beira Tronchuda cabbages.   Unfortunately, the three remaining Ruby Ball cabbages were ruined by the freeze and had to be removed and composted.                 

In the unheated greenhouse, I lost a few of the lettuce plants and the outer leaves on some of the swiss chard, but overall the plants seem to survive fairly well.       

Recognizing I have only a handful of greens producing plants that have survived, I decided to get the grow light going today and start a few cell packs of lettuces, kale, and Chinese cabbages.   Before doing any seed starting, I changed out the grow lights in the light fixture as they were several years old and were losing some of their intensity as a result.   I then planted up four six packs using the very last of my germinating soil mix.               

These were then covered with a plastic dome.                    

And then placed on the heat mat under the grow lights.                     

Overall, considering I did not do much of anything to protect the outside plantings, I was fortunate in that so many of them seem to have survived intact.