Frosty Giveaway Reminder

My normal 'overreact to any cold and cover all plants with 57 blankets and heat lamps' self is quite surprised at how calm she's reacting to the apparently 'everyone is dead' state of the garden she didn't cover with anything but a scant layer of leaves. If only i'd had more leaves on hand. Sigh. I made some sauteed broccoli from frozen garden members last night, and i'm pretty sure the thaw will expose many limp, unspringing-back crops. Thankfully, the garden was really down to pretty much volunteer herbs, kale and onions. I'm hoping the kale springs back, as well as the onions and garlic. The rest may be a wash. Live and learn! I really wanted to see how cold these plants could really take it as a learning experience, after all. Thinking on the bright side: maybe the cucumber beetles will finally be eradicated.

The 'thaw' doesn't appear to be on the horizon any time soon, by the way. We even have a call for flurries tonight. Overnight. Of course. I want to see some snow, dangit! I grew up sledding all Winter and am desperately hankering for some snow to play in. I think i'll harvest more of the sad broccoli tonight, but i'll be leaving the kale and cabbage to see if they persevere. 

I'll post 'after' photos as soon as things thaw out. Here are the greens i harvested last night:

Inside the broccoli: ice particles!

Last but not least: REMINDER REMINDER, GIVEAWAY GIVEAWAY. I announced last Friday that i'd be choosing two winners this Friday for a prize worth over $75 bucks! I think that's worth entering. You have 4 chances to win a gift card for $45 at CSN Stores (they have books, gardening tools, bedding, dog toys, kitchenware: ANYTHING) and 2 coupons for original art by Miranda R. Mueller Illustration. I'll be choosing the winners at 4pm tomorrow: so enter now!

Pocket agrees it's been a bit chilly, and was all tuckered out after watching "Legend of the Guardians" with us last night. She enjoyed our walk outside, and i really hope she gets to see some snow!

Rolling Blackouts Across Texas

Due to the cold weather, our normally too-warm-for-me state is having rolling power outages statewide. I love the cold weather, and don't mind power outages, but my house is awfully dark this time of year. Wholesome Wednesday will be delayed until i'm sure the power will stay on for more than 15 minutes.
In the meantime - here's how my garden looks this morning, not sure if they'll be bouncing back after this hard freeze, especially if it sticks in the 20s for the next foreseeable future.

Wish 'em luck.

Gearing up for Low Twenties!

Here in Austin Tx it is customary to garden through the Winter. It is often our best season.
Until the Winter i try to perennialize jalapeno plants and plant my broccoli and lettuce a little late.
My Texas gardening books say things like "garlic will be happy in the winter, unless we get one of those cold as heck winters that happened in the early nineties." Uh huh.  It's 2010 and I have sad garlic.

I've given up on the poblanos. Mostly given up on the jalapeno: no more light assistance but still covered in some layers of freeze cloth: you never know. Most the veggies seem to spring back somewhat once the morning light FINAally hits them, at 11 am. I would live on the low point of the street with my house blocking am light during winter hours. And it's only been a start. This week/weekend is calling for temps in the low twenties that could feel like the TEENS with the wind. This is some of the coldest weather we've had in Austin for 15 years.

I'm not giving in though: i fight the frost! Tent City has been resurrected. Christmas lights border the edges and the heat lamp has been stolen from The Ladies' coop and inserted under the sheets to hopefully provide yummy warmth to the broccoli, kale, and mesclun greens through the coolest of nights (and hopefully not a brush fire.) What about The Ladies though: they're not used to cold-as-heck weather either. I plan on wrapping their coop with a tarp today to seal out the wind. Hopefully they'll get by with their down covered bodies adn no heat lamp.  I'm also strolling through the various raised beds I've been ignoring and piling up old leaves (thank you, leaf filled back yard) to cover some of the green garlic tips - we'll see if that helps AT all or if the leaves all blow off and i'm left with no harvest from a rather spendy garlic crop.

So wish me luck. I want to eat those broccolis, not watch them feed the compost.

Do you garden down here in the south? Are you trying to save your Winter plantings or letting them frost like "normal" gardens do in the Winter?

It Happened. It Froze.

8:30 am. Right now i'm seriously wishing these darned trees had lost all their darned leaves and would let the morning sun shine through to resuscitate the frozen babies in my vegetable garden. Everything is frozen.
The peppers in their securely covered patch with lamp seem to be okay ... but not thrilled. Their onions cohabitants look stunned, and the garlics in the bed nearby look positively displeased with life.

The main vegetable patch under its tent city construction? I peer under the sheets and see a sorry sorry sight. A touch to a baby spinach leaf reveals stiff rigor mortis of plant body.  I have never tried to garden in an actual winter before, so this state of frozen garden inhabitants is quite unsettling, frustrating, and fear inducing. Will I fail in my winter crop as well as my summer? Will my hard work and love be repaid with dead plants, stunted and non-producing? Was i fooling myself thinking that "cool weather plants" really didn't mind getting a touch of a freeze?  This will be a learning experience for me - hopefully we'll get something to eat this winter (since i missed all my tomatoes this summer on a wedding vacation) and not just a whole lot of chicken snacks and compost.
Sigh.
9:30 am Hurry up, sun! The babies want to feel your warm embrace. If only the garden were on the other side of the house..... but then it would only get am sun, and that is insufficient.
 I'm noticing that i piled some leaves here and there as mulch. I was afraid to smother the plants underneath so i mushed them around exposing the tops of the lettuces etc to the air- but i think i should have just covered it all with leaves and maybe spared the plants underneath them. This freeze just caught me unprepared.

Have to keep reminding myself: gardening is learning. you do not know everything. you will make mistakes and kill plants occasionally.... i just wish they weren't plants i was counting on for food!
I live in zone 8 and have plans on moving to a northern version of zone 8 (yamhill valley in oregon). This is the first year i have seen a hard enough freeze to fill a bucket with more than an inch of ice.

9:45 am. Need to walk to the gym now, cooolld walk.... but i'm feeling hopeful. I pulled back a little bit of tent city to let the sunshine in, will leave the rest covered and light on peppers until i get back from yoga.... it looks like the peas are becoming happily pliable again, the little kales seem unphased, the broccolis thawing out.

12:30. Hope is in sight! I've pulled back some of the sheets and uncovered the peppers and turned their light off. Peppers have just a bit of frost bite on their edges, not bad. All the winter crops in the main garden seem to have sproinged back to life, great. Eggplants have bit the dust, but that was to be expected.

Looks like I may not be a failure after all.

So far so good!

What zone do you live and garden in?
What do you do as a gardener in winter time? When do you call it quits? What precautions do you take before freezes? What crops do you expect to survive and produce throughout the winter in your area?