First Freeze -- Last Fruits

Last night, during an all-too-short interval between a day at work and a night-time event, I found myself out in the garden with a flashlight, stripping the remaining tomatoes, eggplant, and trombetta squash off their respective plants. Freezing temperatures were predicted.

After covering the little potted Meyer lemon and bidding a fond farewell to the basil and nasturtiums, I dashed off to store the last fruits of the summer season in the garage and the kitchen. Clipped branches of tomatoes were hung in the garage, dangling above the one huge, pale beige trombetta that had managed to transition into a winter squash. The eggplant, loose tomatoes, and still-green trombettas went into the house.

This morning I went out to check on the carnage. The basil had turned black overnight, so the expected killing frost had occurred as foretold. The drooping nasturtiums were still green, as were the tomatoes, eggplant, and squash, but they all had lost their will to live, cells burst open by shards of ice that formed inside.

Meanwhile, the spinach, kale, and broccoli were standing tall: "Ah, a bit of frost -- just the refreshing pick-up we were craving."

Some Things I Thought Were Dead That Aren't Dead

The killing frosts in December left a lot of blackened sticks behind that used to be sturdy perennials: salvia and sage, geraniums and fuschias. They all looked as dead as dead can be. But I know from experience that a plant that is a certain goner can fool you. So I let them sit there through the winter. Now, along with the rest of the burgeoning growth that is filling the backyard, these plants are reviving. Dead sticks are festooned with green. Above is Salvia elegans. The common name is Pineapple Sage and this particular one is Freida Dixon, a cultivar with pink blossoms.




This one is Salvia chiapensis. At its peak it has stunning bright fuschia blossoms, long and hollow the way hummingbirds like them. Evidently there are hundreds of salvias, some called sages, and all members of the mint family. (Factoid of the day.)




This is another Pineapple Sage, which will eventually have bright red tubular blossoms. It's sprouting from the base. The blackened sticks are about three feet tall and a few have some festoons. It is also festooned with a lady bug, for contrast.




This is a geranium, I don't know what kind.




Another geranium, with a friendly volunteer viola to keep it company.




A fuschia bush coming back strong.

It's not quite time to prune back the damaged parts of these plants. We are not out of the frost zone. I keep reading in the paper about local vintners who are watching their budding grape vines nervously, worried that one of the cold nights we've been having might encase those delicate buds in ice.

There is not as much at stake in our yard of course, but it's still wise to wait.

Winter Bounty

We had only three nights of temperatures in the twenties. By Thursday we were back to cloudy skies and predictions of rain, finally fulfilled today. All the winter-hardy plants are looking really perky now, coming into their own as their summer compatriots are reduced to limp brown rags, or, in the case of the nasturtiums, green goo.

This afternoon I went out in the rain -- accompanied by a wild-eyed, stir-crazed canine companion -- to do a little picking.

Pictured above, top row, left to right: Redbor kale, Blue Curly kale, a few leaves of dinosaur kale, right below the dinosaur kale some Red Lollo Antago lettuce, Rainbow chard, with some Bloomsdale spinach right below.

Bottom row, left to right: cilantro, Bronze Arrow lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, arugula (a self-seeding volunteer coming up all over the garden), Forellenschluss lettuce.

A festival of vitamins and minerals!




The lemon tree seems fine. Some of its leaves have more of a yellow tinge than they did before the freeze, but that's all.

Everything's Frozen!

This morning, a little before eight, the backyard was a California version of a sparkling winter wonderland. All the greenery was still green but with a new and silvery aspect, stiffened by rhinestones of frost. The water in the birdbath was frozen solid with golden locust leaves suspended in the ice.



A dramatic seasons end for the pepper plants, also finally for the cherry tomatoes. Nasturtiums and basil were already on the way out.

The lemon tree, however, looked fine under its boxy blanket. I took the box off during the day and for tonight have covered the plant with frost protection cloth. We'll see how that works. Tonight will be just as cold.

Frost Protection

We are having a cold spell, with night temperatures falling below freezing. Tonight is predicted to hit 27 degrees. Following advice in the San Francisco Chronicle garden section, I put a cardboard box over the little potted lemon tree. There are lots of big lemon trees in our neighborhood that seem to be thriving -- they are glossy-leaved and covered with lemons -- but our little plant is still young and vulnerable.




We acquired it last Valentine's Day by mail order from a nursery in southern California. It now has five very nice lemons just starting to ripen. Two are visible here, the others are tucked under leaves.

Frost!

There were plenty of intimations of frost before I went out to the garden this morning for the daily inspection. It was a genuinely cold night with chilly tendrils of air creeping in under the blankets. We leave the heat off at night and it was a relief to turn it on right away after getting up and to linger a bit by the heater. The first cup of coffee was a mini-spa, as the steam warmed my face.

In the garden only the nasturtiums and the basil showed noticeable effects. The basil was brown and blasted -- season definitely over without any quibbling about it. The nasturtiums were still green but completely wilted. The sungold tomatoes were still standing tall above the overhead trellis, but looking more bedraggled than yesterday.

Frost factoids: The water inside the plant cells turns to ice crystals and pierces the cell walls, killing them. Hardy plants must have some kind of defense against this.

In this area, average first frost is late November, so we are actually pretty much on schedule. For the record: In 2009, first noticeable effects of frost occurred on December 6.