You may not be thinking at all about your gardens.
I winter garden and I have some hints for any of you with plants still in your garden.
We had a very unusual weather week last week. I've lived here for over 25 years and this is only the 2nd time I've seen something like this where we go from 70 degrees to 9 degrees. Not much can endure that kind of drop for that long. But here is what I do. I take a daily walk in the garden and cut away any branches that froze and are now turing soft and icky. You must do this each day until a healthy plant remains.
By doing a little at a time you give the plant every chance to survive on it's own. Here is what survives after a normal freeze, chard our all time top performer, the smaller chois, kale, beets if they are a winter variety and carrots if the ground didn't freeze too deeply (which I don't believe it did. Things I hope survived, garlic, shallots, beets that weren't winter types,and some of my herbs.
Be sure and clean out all that is dead as soon as possible. I had a nice looking pumpkin on my front porch turn to mush in a flash!
When it's all tidy in your garden put your feet up and look at those seed catalogs and dream of what we will grow in the spring!
Yes my salad table is still growing nicely. It had a double layer of plastic and a 60 watt bulb. We ate lettuce and choi's from it last night and they were perfect. Remember I put it against the house wall to further warm it, even so it was covered in ice each day! The chives will have to be cut way down and see if they can return, but the winter lettuce is doing nicely. A slug found his way in but he is gone and his holes remain!
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