Well, THAT just really sucked. (Pardon me, but it did!)
I spent an hour and a half last night twining lights around plants and trees. Trying desperately to save my beautiful Barbados and Brazilian Cherry trees, Strawberry guavas, Pineapple guavas, tomatoes, the yearling avocados, mango..... and sometime between 1am and 6 am (the only hours I slept) the breaker popped. Yup. No joke.
Not only that, but we went from 'Frost' to -get this - SEVEN to ELEVEN hours of HARD FREEZE. Say WTH? The temperature plummeted even 3 counties SOUTH of me. That never happens. OK, well it rarely happens. That is about as rare as snow in Miami.
*GROAN* I may as well kiss it all goodbye. Hundreds of dollars of tropicals are giving up the ghost as I type. The sickest part is that I kept these plants alive last year and now they are out there with BUDS on them. It made me sick to my stomach to see all the buds on the cherry trees and the orchids last night as I was preparing them for what was surely going to knock most of the buds off. Now I'll be more than lucky, I'll be a Lotto winner if they live.
As for tomatoes, and peppers and such that I expect to be gone. I'll pout when I have to pull them up knowing how much life they had in them just yesterday but it's expected when you garden in January that you'll lose those things some times. I'll simply restart my tomatoes and peppers and start preparing for the first Spring planting this weekend.
Off to sulk away the rest of the day. If you need me I'll be curled in a ball until Spring. Someone wake me when it's time for the next tropical plant show and I can go spend more money trying to grow things that don't make it past 2 years around here. *sigh*
'Till next time.
Barbie~
Barbie, I am so sorry. How cold did it get. Sometimes tropicals will loose their leaves only to come back when they get warm again. I can understand your pain however since last spring I had a heater fail and lost all my pepper and tomato seedlings and I only get one chance to plant here. I sure hope we see you again before spring. If it is any consolation it was -6 here this morning. We have no snow so I am concerned about loosing my perennials this year to the constant freezing then thawing we have been having.
ReplyDeleteOh nooooo! My avacados and citrus froze a couple times last year...but they survived! I had to trim off the dead leaves and feed them lots of compost tea (worm castings, chicken and rabbit poo and mushroom compost)...but it worked. We had a solid week of freezing here a couple weeks ago and I kept everything covered and so far all looks fine. Good luck and I hope all recover.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, Barb! My tomatoes and peppers are gone. Next year, I won't waste any energy covering them for a hard freeze. Live and learn. I too will start seeds this weekend.
ReplyDeleteAhhhhhhh! Just checked out the carnage....I wasted time covering tomatoes and peppers and should have covered the lettuce. Some of it didn't make it. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
ReplyDeleteWilderness - With only 1 chance I'm afraid I'd never harvest I'm always messing things up! LOL
ReplyDeleteLynda I actually hope my citrus freeze! I'm worried they have a disease and my hubby won't let me replace due to cost. It's the only plant he really cares about besides the orchids - go figure!
Melissa - I learn still all the time. It's one heck of a process. THink we'd figure things out but we don't! :-D I'm not looking forward to getting into the garden this weekend. I'm just sick thinking about it.