Winter. Again. Still.

The average temperature in February where we live is 51 degrees.  Over the last seven days, the average has been 36.4 degrees.  Winter.  Again.

We are weather watchers, especially with plants in the ground (we have become our parents).  Last week we started seeing predictions the temperatures were going to get down into the 20s again.  We waited and watched; surely this was an error?  Surely we were not going to have yet another freeze??

Surely we would and we did.

We got busy.  We have our routine down at this point.  Thursday night we covered the potatoes with landscape fabric.

Cletus covered most of the tomatoes with buckets and modified water jugs.

We set up sprinklers to cover both the potatoes on the side and everything else (squash, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes) in the back. 

The night of the super lows we turned on the sprinkler in hopes the moving water would protect the plants themselves from freezing.  It might produce ice, but if the water keeps moving the plants have a better chance of survival than being left to the cold.

Friday morning we woke up to a winter wonderland.

 

Friday night we turned the sprinklers back on.  We did not have as hard a freeze that night, fortunately.  

Cletus uncovered and evaluated Saturday while I was at the market.  We did not have as much of a loss as we might have but we did lose a lot of the squash. 

 

Over this winter we have lost the banana fruit, the loquat fruit, the satsuma tree is not looking well at all, and the cherry we planted late summer is nothing but a twig.

As I write this, it is another cold, wet day.  Temperatures are expected to be back to normal tomorrow.  Plants are back outside.  Baby quail can go out to the brooder box in the shed tomorrow.   Squash will be replanted.  We plan to buy another satsuma (or three) at the spring plant show.  

Spring IS coming.  

Really.  

Hang in there!