light frost

[George Shirley]

Went out at daylight and found frost on the grass but not on the raised bed gardens. Looks like we might get a freeze before to long but I hope not.

The born again pears (first crop came on in early January and then were hit twice with a hard freeze. Then they came back blooming and putting on fruit and that fruit is turning a russet color toward ripeness and are being hunted by another freeze. Naturally the fruit are about the size of a golf ball so there's not going to be much fruit to eat or preserve. Maybe next season, aka January 2018, we won't have a double down freeze again.

Not only all that above but the tree is blooming again, I'm afraid there's going to be another hard freeze before spring. I'm thinking of throwing a tarp over the tree just to save the blooms for next year. Have some old two by fours about sixteen feet long that might just hold up a tarp and might even confuse the folks driving by.

George

[Terry Coombs]

  It was like 18° this morning at 7:25 when I went out to warm up the car for my wife . Frosty ! The garden is finished , stuff was turning black yesterday after an overnight low in the high 20's . Methinks Winter has made an appearance here ...   --   Snag

[George Shirley]

My wife has to start a cold car, she was raised in Maryland, it gets cold there.

[Terry Coombs]

  I do it mainly to defrost the windows . She hates waiting for it to warm up . If it's too frosted up I'll scrape the side windows , but prefer to let it melt the windshield . Back glass and the mirrors have 'lectricky heat so I don't mess with those .   --   Snag

[derald]

Not even close to frost here but definitely starting to feel like fall has arrivived. Chilly 58 (F) on the porch this morning but was in high 40's a couple or mornings within the past week or so. A bit of light rain last night, sunny, windy, and cooling this day as George's cold front comes through. Looking at a couple more chilly mornings RSN but not likely to need a fire. Some of the peppers took last week's chilly mornings seriously and wilted a bit. They seemed to be recovering but here comes more chill. Might cover them. Some of the fruit is ripening nicely and I'd like to leave it on the teat until it's fully ripe. This time of year, warm days and mild nights are the norm between short term chilly spells. Freezing temps before January or February are unusual but they do occur.

Fruits that require dormancy and so-called vernalization don't do well here. The short term temperature variability and southern latitude confuses them badly causing them to produce leaves, blossoms, or fruit at inopportune times of year.

[Muggles]

Pears! yummmmmm!

[Muggles]

We've been just shy of freezing temps at night. Our neighbor had some plants in her garden die over night, but my begonias must love the cold temps because they didn't seem to mind the low temps at all. I took cuttings off the angel wing begonias to root them. It's cool how they just keep on going.

Our hot peppers are growing like the begonias, too. We have a bumper crop of ghost, habaneros, and chili's!