Frost at the Temple Terrace Community Garden

As expected at the Saturday work day, late Sunday afternoon, there was a freeze watch posted on Sunday afternoon for midnight until 9AM on Monday morning.  About 4 PM, I went down to the garden and found another work day!  Carrie and Nancy decided to harvest everything they had prior to the frost and added some top soil.  Another person was down placing blankets on her crops.  I tented mine (wish I had taken a picture of that- it was quite a scene).  Hank (Travis' young son) got down close to the ground to help me close all the cracks.  Then Hank, Travis and I got a lot of wood and anchored down the covers.  Travis also promised me that he would take down my covers in the morning when he brought Hank to school (Thanks Travis- I had a very hard morning!)

By 7PM, the freeze watch had turned to a freeze warning.  It was going to get below 32 degrees for several hours and plants that were not covered or brought in doors were going to  be at risk.  Jennifer Marshall went down early the next morning and took these pictures (posted at the TTCG Facebook page):

My heart sunk. Everything was covered with frost! Would my covers be enough?  After work today, I had a few minutes of day light and rushed down to my plants to see if there was damage.  

 

From a distance, the garden looked like nothing had changed:

Here is the sunflower that greets us as we come in from the south.  Looks bright and sunny.

But then here is my tomato- think that the plants will survive and the tomatoes looked great. But almost all the growth at the top of the tomatoes was dead- lost about a foot of height.

 Here were selected parts of the garden that look as if nothing has happened:

Cabbage like plants look happy and fresh.  Carrots were unharmed.  These were plants that were not covered.

My herbs (covered) were well and happy

Even tiny carrot plants looked fine

Look at the this beautiful lettuce!  These were not covered.

Petunias in the thieves garden look great!

Brussels sprouts look ready to keep growing

Dill flowers are still blooming

Collards are just gorgeous

There were some plants that were devastated.  Most of the uncovered tomatoes were pretty sad, but some were untouched.  New plants that are not cabbage-family, carrots, or lettuce look wilted.  My new plants that were covered with Spanish moss were very not affected- so this is something to remember for the future. All in all, from the perspective of my untrained eye this evening, we weathered the frost fairly well.  Let's hope that things look this good on Saturday.  

Just like Florida, this evening it was 70 degrees and the temperature is not expected to drop below 50 in the next few days.  Let you know what I see on Saturday!