A bit of snow and cold
It was 12° when I first went outside, but I suspected it would stampede toward 20° by noon. Perfect time to visit the garden, so I dressed like a gardener in Yellowknife and ventured outside.
A moderate dusting of snow was the color of the day, and there are vegetables that abide 12° and a bit of snow. I get to go back inside after a while if I choose, but these plants stay put, so who’s tougher – me or arugula? At first glance, plants with snow on top might appear to be cold weather champions, but champions or not, at 12° on a gray winter day their leaves are frozen and brittle and the ground they live in is frozen.
Around here, the weather usually fluctuates enough that leafy things like mustard or chicory suffer when the cold spell hits, but they might rebound when the weather warms up again. You never know which ones will make it.
Oregano and thyme survive every time. I’ve never had rosemary make it through freezing weather in my garden, yet friends in town have a few unsheltered rosemary patches by their house that flourish. Last winter, a peach tree in the garden died in the severe February weather, but not far away, parsley and cilantro survived. We all have our tolerances.
It becomes obvious on winter mornings like this that there is not much to do in the garden. The ground is frozen, the plants are frozen, my nose is frozen, but with the snow all around, everywhere looks like a painting, so an appreciative gardener can snap a few photos to capture the cold. At some point, however, it’s time to go inside, drink some tea and organize the seed basket.
Snow is good for the plants during an extended cold spell because it insulates the soil and moderates extreme temperature fluctuations which matters if you are an asparagus crown or a garlic in the cold, cold ground. Snowflakes also pick up nitrogen from the air on their trip to earth.
Some plants require vernalization, or a certain number of days in winter below a certain temperature, to bloom the following spring. Peach trees are a notable example, but biennial vegetables such as carrots, cabbage or beets need some chill time in order to flower the following summer and produce seeds. Strawberries and blueberries also benefit from a cold spell.
A few frosty days also eliminates some insect pests… nothing personal, but that’s a good thing, and some plant diseases that thrive in warmer, damp soil don’t survive in the cold nights like we’ve just had.
Some folks claim kale and other brassicas taste better after they freeze. Like herbs, kale stores nutrients in its roots as starch, and cold temperatures causes the starch to convert to sugars which the plants use in spring to make leaves and blooms. In the meantime, kale tastes better (if you like kale, and who doesn’t like kale).
Garlic planted in late summer will already have strong vertical leaves which extended cold in late autumn or early winter will knock down. The bulbs will sit quietly in the ground, save their energy until spring when they send up their verticals again to nourish the bulb until harvest time. Garlic will produce larger bulbs under a layer of leaves or straw to insulate the top few inches of soil against the cold.
The other side of reality about sub-freezing temperatures is that no amount of mulch will prevent the cold from killing some of your plants. Gonna happen. That is why some gardeners simply wait until spring to invest energy in their garden again. Other gardeners build elaborate tunnels over beds to try to simulate a greenhouse effect. Or some plant root crops like winter radishes, rutabagas, carrots and beets.
Bottom line for us is we’re in Arkansas. Isn’t it going to warm up soon?