Frosty morning
Category: weather
Rare rain
Steady delicious rain this morning. A good time to put the houseplants outside on the deck for a shower and a deep watering.
First fire of season
Sam built a fire in the woodstove this frosty morning. It was 66 degrees in the house and the forecast is for clouds and rain, so little solar gain expected.
Frost on the pumpkin
An early frost this year. Three nights in a row. A light frost that barely affected our remaining veggies in the home garden. But I thought it was time to harvest the squash at the community garden. Here they are, looking good!
June 1 frost
Adding to our sense of disorientation and confusion – a late frost on June 1st. And temps in the 30’s on June 2nd. Lost a few tomato plants. Some other tomatoes and some fingerling potato sprouts got burned.
I covered the summer squash, ground cherry, cucumbers, and the beds in the hoophouse where heat-loving crops are planted. Those plants survived fine.
I’m posting this here as a reminder to the future that the last frost dates cannot be trusted. When in doubt, cover!
Snowareness
Good Friday snow fall
A somber day marked by overnight snowfall, power outages, struggle to grocery shop during a pandemic, and a series of beautiful snow squalls.
I had to unearth my broccoli seedlings from burial under row cover flattened by pounds upon pounds of wet heavy snow.
I took too many photos of snow. I can’t resist. More photos on my iPad, will post them later.
A little April snow
Under the tightening grip of the pandemic, it stays peaceful here. Today a little light snow. Robust tomato sprouts will soon need transplanting.
All-weather gardening
Snow was predicted earlier, but the forecast changed. And indeed we are getting rain, rain, and more rain and strong winds. A real snow melter.
I thought it would be pleasant enough sheltered in the hoophouse but the temperature was somewhere in the 30’s and my hands became numb almost immediately.
Nevertheless I planted some arugula, Salanova lettuce, and tatsoi in some of the empty rows in the hoophouse. Sam watered them in with the hose. Now we are warming up inside.
Chickens have started laying again, sporadically.
Temperature tracking
Sam is interested in the temperature management inside the hoophouse where we are overwintering greens. Four seasons farming!
The hoophouse’s plastic cover does part of the job. Then there is an internal low hoop of heavy duty row cover over the raised beds. He has also hung silver-backed bubble wrap from the internal hoophouse frame to reflect light down onto the plants on sunny days.
To give an indication of the difference it makes on a cold day, I recorded some temperatures on February 9, 2020:
| Time | Conditions | Thermometer Location | Temperature |
| 6:30 am | Sunrise | Outside | 1 ℉ |
| In hoophouse | ? | ||
| Row cover down | At soil level | 19 ℉ | |
| 9 am | Sun | Outside | 8 ℉ |
| In hoophouse | 37 ℉ | ||
| Row cover down | At soil level | 28 ℉ | |
| 9:30 am | Sun | Outside | 9.3 ℉ |
| In hoophouse | 51 ℉ | ||
| Row cover raised | At soil level | 50 ℉ | |
| 11:00 am | Sun | Outside | 12 ℉ |
| In hoophouse | 72 ℉ | ||
| Row cover raised | At soil level | 71 ℉ | |
| 7:30 pm | Dark | Outside | 19 ℉ |
| In hoophouse | 20 ℉ | ||
| Row cover down | At soil level | 30 ℉ |
Conclusions:
- The hoophouse and the row covers definitely both help. On a 1 degree night, the temperature at soil level was 19 degrees.
- A manual effort is required to lift off the row covers when the sun is shining. This shows in the difference at soil level between 9 and 9:30 am. With the row cover down at 9 am, the row cover was keeping in the night’s cold even though the temp in the hoophouse was rising quickly. With the row cover raised shortly after 9 am, the temps in the hoophouse and soil level equalized.
- After the sun went down, it was 19 outside, 20 in the hoophouse, and 30 at soil level, showing the row covers really retain some of the day’s heat.
Sam wants to automate the lifting of the row covers (and other aspects of this process when we get a greenhouse). But for now, it’s been an interesting science project and we are still eating a small amount of greens.