Big, big blast of cold air with a projected hard freeze. No doubt I’ll lose the tomatoes but I have enough warning to pick the green ones. Our experience is that some of those will ripen properly and some will wind up as fried green tomatoes or green tomato pasta sauce. I’m going to try to save the cherry tomato plant by double wrapping it and putting a shop lamp inside the wrapping to generate some heat. I did a major pick on Sunday and picked anything ripe or even close. I probably picked 5-7 pounds, which is a load of those little guys and split them with Barbara. As for the rest of the crop, if it’s only a couple hours in the upper 20’s, most of the stuff should do ok with light covering.
Nancy came up with a tremendous idea to help stave off the plant damage. We have lots of hanging plants, orchids and ferns that can’t deal with the cold; Also such potted softies as impatiens, geraniums, and begonias. I have a couple of fold up tables on the porch that we use for big parties. I use one of those, covered with an old car cover, to harden off plants between the seed start phase and the garden transplant. She suggested that the plants could be set underneath the table with a lamp to generate heat. The car cover is quite a bit larger than the table so I set up both tables, spaced them a few feet apart and then stretched the cover over both, draping down to the floor all around, to create an 8‘x12’ tent. She donated a lamp with a 100 watt bulb to provide the heat. (Wonder what we’ll do when we can no longer buy 100 watt incandescent bulbs – don’t think this will work with an LED). Nancy’s motive was to keep the plants outside instead of filling the guest bathroom as we’ve done every year in the past. For me, it made the whole job much simpler and faster to deal with the plants. This particular time we’ve had days to prepare but more normally we’re flirting right on the edges of a frost and don’t know until hours before the actual event so I’ll just leave the tent in place until March.
Personally, I prepared myself for the deep freeze by watching the Green Bay playoff game on Sunday but was disappointed when Al Gore didn’t do a parachute drop onto the field at half time. All of this is being explained as a Polar Vortex that has shifted much further South than usual because of some jet stream phenomenon. Came out of nowhere. Wonder if the climate models account for such? If it was permanently stuck there for a couple of years, Ice Age; Burn more coal.
Hawk update – Those three pigeon hawks have basically taken up residence nearby and spend hours sitting on the bean poles scanning the garden and surrounding field. They really let me get close so they’re not afraid of me at all. While I was watching this morning, one dropped down in the garden and came up with something small in it’s claws. I couldn’t see what it was but am guessing it was a mole or mouse. He/she proceeded to eat it in small bites over the next few minutes. In the past we’ve had problems with rats and I’m hoping these guys clean out that population. Another piece of pigeon hawk trivia – they mate in January. Right out there in public.
Freeze update – It didn’t here at the lake. I got up at 6AM and it was only 34. It was windy and I went outside for a microsecond just to see what the wind chill was like and it was -34. The forecast had us going to 28 but I think the lake affect kept us a bit warmer. I measured the water temp yesterday and it was a warm 60 so we’re living about 200’ from a giant heat source. So far the tomatoes look good.
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