Yes, we've had our first frost here in Northern WI already! Last night I was checking the weather and saw the frost advisory listed for our area. I definitely am NOT ready to lose our garden! Our tomatoes are finally starting to ripen after a really cold spring and early summer. Our corn is just starting to be ready to pick. Our beans are just hitting their peak. There are just too many good things that are just ready to start being harvested that I'm not ready for the garden to die! I knew I needed to keep the garden going longer for sure!
I had read in "Farmer Boy" in the Little House on the Prairie series, that Almanzo's family had a frost on the 4th of July and during the night they all got up and started hauling buckets of water to dump on their corn to keep it from freezing. Their father told them that as son as the sun's rays started to touch the plant's leaves, they would be lost so they were rushing to dump water on as many plants as possible before the sun came up.
So last night I went to sleep thinking I may try to get up before the sun is up and water the garden to make sure the garden doesn't freeze. So I went to sleep and during the night dreamed about waking up and seeing my garden all dead and all the plants lying flat on the ground. So I slept a bit restlessly knowing I wanted to make sure to get up before the sun to check to see if it had frosted.
Finally 5:45 rolls around and I could tell it was beginning to get light. I looked out my bedroom window and thought that it looked like there may be frost out there. I decided to get up and put on a warm shirt and go out to check things out. When I got out there, the grass definitely seemed a bit crusty and on feeling plants in the garden, they also seemed to have a bit of a frosty crust on them. So I went for the garden hose. On trying to get started watering, it wouldn't run at first so I found a kink. Then I started watering again and again I had problems with not much water coming out. I decided that there must have been a little ice in the hose and that it was blocking up the spray nozzle. I took it off and let water run out of the hose and shook out the nozzle. Then went to turn off the hose so I could put the nozzle back on and then turned the water back on (all the way from the front of our house where the water comes out) and finally got started watering. The gardens needed a good watering so after spraying down the plants, I gave the garden a good watering.
We have one area where we built some teepees to grow some plants up but since we don't have it fenced, we call it the "deer garden" because they munch on it. I hope it keeps them out of our other gardens! Anyways, since there wasn't much of anything to eat from in that garden, I decided to not water it so I could tell if the garden would have frozen without my watering it. Sure enough, by the afternoon when I checked it, many of the plants had died and the ones that hadn't died, didn't look the best and had some pretty damaged leaves!
So, I avoided a major catastrophe and the loss or damage of many plants by getting up and watering it! Last year at the first frost, I tried covering the garden, but that didn't prevent it from dying unfortunately. We'll see how many times I can save it by watering it before winter really hits and there's no purpose in watering anymore! Hopefully we can prolong the garden as long as possible! So if you have a frost predicted, try watering the garden before the sun comes up to save it.
How fun that something you read about in Farmer Boy actually worked for you. Although you had some trouble getting your hose going, I think you probably had it a lot easier than hauling buckets like Almanzo did.
I also think that is wonderful! Just think of the good that has come from reading the books of the ways forgotten! I imagine large farming companies might know that but the every day person doesn't! So glad you were able to save the garden!
What a great idea. Here in Central Texas we are just hoping for cooler weather. Our first frost could be as late as December. I will definitely try to save our plants by watering them. I'll also have to pull out my Farmer Boy book. It's been too many years since we read that one.
What an awesome thing to try!
I would have never thought that would work. I will keep that in mind, when we have our garden. Sadly this year we didn't plant one. It turned out to be a good thing, though. We went out of town more than usual this year and there is no way I could have kept up with a garden. I am hoping for one next year. We cleaned out our garden area and it is ready for next spring. YEA!!!
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• Fri 29 Aug 2008 - Untitled Comment
How fun that something you read about in Farmer Boy actually worked for you. Although you had some trouble getting your hose going, I think you probably had it a lot easier than hauling buckets like Almanzo did.
Way to go!