Yes, FROST in June Still Kills Plants!

Can you believe this? Two nights ago we had a light FROST! That’s right, June 13th. Frost.

It killed all of my tomato plants. Damaged most of my pepper plants.

It wasn’t forecast to be that cold (and I wasn’t expecting it to be that cold) so I didn’t cover anything.

Almost all of my 48 pepper plants got bit on the top. All new tender growth killed. Lots of new growth flower/buds, dead.

I have hundreds of corn. Many of them got partially zapped – but I believe they’ll make it.

The potatoes are fine.

So, we drove to the nursery the next day. Almost ALL of what they had was entirely gone. Nadda. And this is a descent size nursery with lots of green houses. Already sold out due to so many new gardeners this year.

But I did find a handful of tomato plants. So I replaced them yesterday.

Do you know what happened last night? It “almost” frosted again! It was 35 degrees when Mrs.J got up (she gets up earlier than I do). When I got up, she gave me the news. I hesitantly went out there to check again (after my coffee of course).

Thank goodness it looks okay.

June Frost | Lessons Learned

Unfortunately we have a short growing season here. So we need to plant veggies of varieties that are generally shorter to maturity.

I need to stay very aware of the forecast on each end of the short season.

We had a beautiful and warm second half of May. So we planted early (beginning of the last week of May). That said, we would have planted by June 1st anyway – though paying attention to frost forecasts because we’ve always had a frost very early June. But this one, middle of June?!!

Every year that we’ve been here so far (~ 6 years) we’ve had a killing frost sometime during the first week of September, cutting the season short. It’s frustrating because often it warms back up again for a delightful September month! Ugh…

I certainly have to be creative and careful about what I plant up here. I don’t have greenhouses. But that’s what is really needed to extend this growing season into what would be just long enough to be comfortable. I envy you southerners who can garden for so much of the year.

For the life of me I cannot understand how you folks up in Canada can garden. Granted, I’m not too terribly far from your border, but really? What do have like 60 days to garden?!

The good thing is, the high calorie vegetables (my potatoes and corn) are okay. I hope to can lots of the harvest. Time will tell…

Hey, at least my apple trees are finally producing apples!