Today we share with you the harsh reality of growing in the high desert. We had some cool temps this past weekend, usually right about now we have our last frost. In the general scheme of growing vegetables, June is SUPER LATE for a last frost, but as you all know, the high desert does what it wants! Usually this is a light frost, and we make it through just fine, but this was a good one, our forecast when we went to bed was for 37 degrees: cold, but even our sensitive outdoor crops should make it through. We woke up and checked our monitoring system, and it had hit 30 degrees. We suddenly realized we had (once again) put too much faith in the weathermen. Our uncovered green beans and most of the winter squash didn't make it. We use a lot of fabric row cover to protect from this kind of thing, but these crops had gone out recently and we thought we might be able to get away with skipping the lugging of sand bags, wire hoops and row cover back out into the field. It's always a sad day when a whole crop dies, but we've realized that you can't be right all the time and sometimes you just don't have time to always play it cautious.
Instead, we plan for insurance. We have some extra transplants and extra seed and they will all be replaced and will have time yet to grow big and productive! Not to mention our first green beans that we plant in our hoophouse for safe keeping, which is looking stellar, it's amazing what difference a little plastic cover can make! Also, most things we grow don't even bat an eye at 30 degrees and so, the spring bounty continues, enjoy!
Oh, by the way, we're excited to have some mixed tomato pints available this week as extras, snatch one up if you like, we're sure they'll go quick. We son't quite have enough yet to offer them in shares, but we want to make sure you can get some now if you want them! So many more are coming very soon.
Farming on,
Ashley and Caleb
