Country bumpkin: Did Freezing Temps Wreak Havoc on the Greens?!

Last week from November 23 through the 27th, the temperature took a nosedive into freezing weather... brrrr! With the lows being 30 degrees Farenheit down to 21 degrees Farenheit. Anticipating this, due to the forecast, we buttoned up the hoop house for the duration. The other point I've learned is that it's not really the freezing temperatures that do in the vegetables, but the wind that dries out the plant and desiccates them. The winds on some days went up to 30 mph with gusts up to 37 mph. Fortunately, the hoop house visqueen stayed tucked in place. Once I did have to go out and tuck in one of the end pieces, but other than that, it worked very well.

Today, we decided to put a thermometer inside the hoop house to see how warm it actually was in there around noon time. With outside temperature at about 41 degrees, I was happy to see that inside the hoop house it was 60 degrees! I haven't read the thermometer when the outside temperature was below freezing to see what the difference would be then, but I'll have to do that sometime soon and let you know.

Anyway... today's pictures were fun to take because we had the five days of freezing weather and the plants hadn't been watered since last Tuesday. I noticed yesterday that condensation was still dripping down the sides of the visqueen so I knew they had plenty of moisture to keep them strong.

Take a peek at the veggies...

60 degrees by the spinach leaves...

Here's a long shot of the whole bed... (Notice the micro green that's bolted into a flower.)

The arugula really needs to be picked! There's so much of it. I might have start giving it away or preserving it in bags in the freezer after blanching it.