Tonight is the first real frost watch of the year. I covered a bunch of beds for a couple of nights last week, but the chance of frost seemed slim, with the overnight forecast around 35°F (<2°C). Today, they say it’s supposed to go down to 33°F (0.5°C), with clear skies and no wind, perfect frost conditions. Under cover: peppers, eggplant, summer squash, beans, cucumber (a really late experimental planting), basil, sweet potato (above). It’s floating row cover is the usual Agribon AG-19, in 14′ ((4.3m) widths. Let’s see how it goes…!
Always amazed how quickly autumn comes to your area–we’re cooler now, eh, which means temps around 90F if you can believe it…lowest temp we’ve had overnight since May 15th is above 60F! So, still haven’t thought about harvesting the sweet potatoes…
So how did the late planting of cucumbers as an experiment for out?
Cucumber: Oh, not quite. I planted Patio Pickle, a fast-growing pickling cuke that’s good to eat fresh as well. They flowered and started to set fruit, but growth slowed down so much in the really cool weather and shortening days, they eventually got caught by the cold. A good couple of weeks of warm, sunshiny weather instead, and we’d have had one harvest. Oh, well, that’s gambling!