The cold has finally completely shut down the summer crops. The 16° low temperature on Wednesday morning froze all the remaining summer plants.
Yesterday we cleared all the trellises from the field. We use cattle panels secured to t-posts to trellis cucumbers, chiles, peppers, tomatoes and the mouse melons. We removed the wires holding the cattle panels to the posts, stacked out the panels against the field perimeter fence, pulled up the posts and stacked them as well. The field is a lot different now, especially the middle terrace where the trellises were.
The winter crops are under double row covers now. This makes more work for us as we uncover all the beds in the morning after it warms up to allow the sun to shine on the plants, then cover everything back up in the mid-afternoon. This traps in some heat for the night and also protects the plants from the freezing temperatures.
SouthWinds Farm 