Yep, we had frogs on the pumpkins last week. We also had frost on the pumpkins. I prefer frogs. At first I felt we had more warning of the upcoming frost. But thinking about it further I realized we didn’t have more warning, we had more experience. I don’t think any of the weather forecasts I saw mentioned frost until maybe the Thursday before the Friday night frost. Not much warning. But with our past experience we realized when they forecast a cold spell in September and mention lows around 40, there is a high likelihood we will get a frost here at the farm — and that is exactly what happened.
So how do we prepare for the first frost of the fall? The first step is to assess the status of the warm season crops. These include peppers, tomatoes, beans, watermelons, sweet potatoes, hot peppers, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, eggplants and some other things I may be forgetting. Each crop presents different opportunities for what we should do prior to the frost. Some crops are sufficiently small that we can cover them with floating row covers. These are long sheets of lightweight fabric that cover the plant much like a blanket. They are lightweight enough to not squish the plant yet provide a couple degrees of protection which can prevent frost from killing the plant if the temperature is not too cold. We used three layers of row covers over the beans to keep them warm enough. It seems to be mostly successful though some leaves perished.
Another technique we use is putting the sprinklers on the plants overnight. This approach works well with peppers. By running the sprinklers over the plants a layer of ice may freeze on the plants but the plants themselves do not die. In fact, once the ice thaws the plants look as good as they did prior to the frost. Check out this post on farm physics to better understand how this works.
The third technique is harvesting. Plants like watermelons and tomatoes are too large for row covers. Usually by the time of the first frost the tomato plants are showing significant signs of disease. The watermelons typically have been harvested once or twice so they don’t have a lot of melons left. So in these two cases we just go through the plants and harvest everything worth harvesting. This year with the tomatoes we took a chance and left many of the green ones still on the plants. Since the forecast prior to Friday didn’t mention frost as a possibility we decided it would be worth leaving some of the tomatoes to ripen if we didn’t get a frost. The result? The frost on Friday did not kill all the tomato plant, just many of them. The frost on Monday night — the frost none of the forecasters mentioned — killed a few more. So this week we will go through the tomatoes one more time and harvest anything worth harvesting. Time to get the green tomato recipes out!
Another technique we use in our hoop house. This is the large, unheated structure where we planted our sweet potatoes this season. It provides a few degrees of frost protection. With the two frosts we’ve had so far there has been minimal damage to the sweet potato vines. Once we get a forecasted frost I’m sure they will perish.
The last technique we use is the do nothing technique. This is for any of the remaining warm season plants. Potatoes are one example. Since the potato grows underground, the death of the plant above ground doesn’t ruin the tuber. So we do nothing with potatoes.
Finally, one last thing we do — and by no means is it the least important nor the least time consuming — is the harvesting of the winter squash. We prefer to not have the frost hit the winter squash fruits if we can avoid it. So if we have sufficient time, the fruits are ripe and we are feeling the need to lift 1000s of pounds of dead weight, we will harvest the squash. We did this last week as well.
So as you can see this past week was one of the busiest weeks of the season. Which brings me to my last and most important item: the “Thank yous!” We could not have accomplished all this last week if it wasn’t for a few people who stopped by to lend a hand, whether it was for a couple hours or a couple days. All the help was greatly appreciated. Miranda, Joe, Jessica, Carrie, Brook, and Lauren all lent a hand at one time or another last week. We have them to thank for the tomatoes, beans, pumpkins and winter squash.
So, what will we have this week? Last week’s shares were a bit on the light side due to our need to get the farm prepared for the frost. Now we get to reap the benefits of that work. This week we will have garlic, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, peppers, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, pie pumpkins, beans, and probably a few other things I’ve forgotten.
FlowerShare this week will be pumpkins and gourds!
FruitShare this week will be honeycrisp and gala apples, crimson grapes, colorado peaches, dapple dandy pluots, and bartlett pears.
CheeseShare, IceCreamShare, CoffeeShare and EggShare are all this week.
SeafoodShare and SalmonShare be available October 1st.
Another quick reminder to RSVP for the Garlic Planting Extravaganza! It will be October 4th starting at 1:00 PM and going until the garlic is planted. Following the planting we will have dinner and a bonfire. Rain dates are the 5th, the 11th, and the 12th. Hopefully we don’t have to reschedule any later than that. There is plenty to do for all regardless of your physical capabilities. Please let me know if you will be here and how many people are coming so that I know how many La Madeline au Truffles to buy.