I had Sunday morning email from a local buddy, and from my dad up in Rochester area, NY, both commenting on the frost warning the night before and how they brought in all their plants.
What!? No no no! I checked weather.com the nite before, around 930pm probably - wasn't supposed to get below 42F and there was NO mention of frost!!!
I peeked out back through the patio door and everything looked fine. I even scoped out the nasturtium seedlings, knowing they're super tender and always sort of dissolve into slime with the first frost that hits them in the fall. They were fine! Great!
Had breakfast, putzed around, showered, decided it was time to go out back and maybe pot up the hanging baskets and some other stuff, and found my tomatoes were all wilted, so were the watermelons and the sweet potato vines I'd bought recently, and the okra seedlings (still with just two leaves) looked DEAD - fallen over, wilted leaves.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Everything else looked fine. And the tomatoes weren't TOO bad off - just bent over a little.
I was miserable. I decided I needed to just move on, pot up the hanging baskets, and see if the tomatoes perked up. Luckily, once the sun had been out awhile, ALL of the victims perked up, although I'm still real skeptical about the okra (leaves look seriously damaged), and I need to double check the watermelon seedlings. The sweet potato vines, which looked awful when I first went out, made a miraculous recovery. Whew!!
And thanks to neighbors Claire, Ainsley and Miranda for helping soak the moss to line the hanging baskets, for helping pot up those baskets, and for the recycled mini water bottles pricked full of holes to embed in the soil of the baskets - now I can feel safer that my baskets won't dry out (assuming I keep those bottles full!). Also planted a variety of sizes of pots with flowers and herbs, and even tucked in a couple tomato plants. I might even put in some peppers and another tomato plant since I have more pots to fill!
Will post pics later!
3 comments:
Instead of being lazy like I usually am, I planted all the new stuff I got at Amber's Saturday afternoon right when I got home. Crap!
But I wasn't taking any chances on that frost, Jeph. I covered all my stuff with old sheets, especially my Peace rose which wilts and shrivels if you happen to look at it cross-eyed. I kept worrying that bored neighborhood teens would be roaming around at 3:00 a.m., drunk, and take off with the sheets, but that didn't happen. I guess kids these days really DO just spend all their time on their cell phones, eating junk food, as seen on TLC's Honey, We're Killing the Kids.
Not the okra. NOOOOOOOOOOO....
Oh well, given that I manage to kill a planter or two of flowers each summer out on the patio, I shouldn't moan on. Benign neglect is how I think of it, but really, it's an abusive relationship I've decided not to go through with this year.
Photos would be nice!
Oh, I'm notorious for saying I overplant and have too many growies to accomodate the losses from this sort of event. I just didn't want to lose my precious tomatoes!!!
Cindy. You know where I live!! You're so close. WHY didn't you come over here in the middle of the nite and cover up my babies with sheets??!?!
Julie G said she almost called me Saturday nite to warn me! It's good to know I'm loved! :)
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