Frosty Morning in early April

Oso accompanies me to turn the sprinklers off on a recent frosty morning. The sprinklers were used for frost protection in the strawberries and asparagus this last week.

Due to recent rains and the added sprinkler water from the frost protection effort, the strawberries are flooded in standing water.

Berries are cracked from all the over-watering. Any red berries in the field have now spoiled or frozen from recent conditions, but green and flowering berries were safe from frost this week.

Oso decides the cracked and flooded berries are perfectly tasty for an early morning breakfast.

When is it going to quit

Three AM and the alarm goes off. The wind machines are on in the back of Gary’s place and it is another frosty morning. This morning a few sprinklers were partly plugged. Even on the hottest sunny day, clearing plugged sprinklers is a wet and cold job. At least my car has a good heater and in thirty minute the coffee house will open. It may be a few degrees warmer than the other day but still there is ice on the aluminum pipes. The car thermometer reads a few degrees warmer than ground level. If it keeps freezing like this I will need to get a better way to monitor the temperature because it gets costly to run the pump if I don’t need to. There is always something to spend more money on and we do our part in keeping this economy going. I remembered we have an infrared food safety thermometer back at the kitchen. It measures the surface temperature, not air temperature. Tomato plants 34˚,  strawberry leaves 30˚,  asparagus 29˚ fava bean 24˚not protected, and the aluminum pipes 20˚!!! dry,  66˚ full of water. Even though the asparagus is below freezing, the melting and freezing of the water from the sprinklers keeps internal parts from hitting critical temperatures. A little higher humidity this morning;  lots of white frost.  It’s pretty in January not now.

Litter "Out of sight Out of mind"

Three to four time a year the landscape company brings in this grinder to grind their yard waste, leaving us with hundreds of yards of mulch, our main nutrient in put for the farm. There is one problem, litter! When people throw their garbage in the bushes at the mall or theater I have to pick it up in my field. Some of the worst slobs are cigarettes smokers and junk food consumers at least from what I find in the field.

Calling for rain

The forecast is calling for rain today, that's good!! no frost. This morning was in the high thirties that is cold but not freezing. So I got to sleep in. Things in the field are on a holding pattern; we are waiting for warmer weather to start planting again. Pablo and the crew are cleaning up around the field and weeding the asparagus. After two days of running the sprinklers for frost protection the asparagus beds are soft so it is easy to pull the deep rooted weeds. Pablo also has hundreds of beds ready to seed and or transplant. Lee and her crew at the greenhouses have tomatoes, basil, peppers, chiles and other plant waiting to be planted. All waiting for the mad rush of spring planting.

It is four thirty in the morning and the sprinklers are going. I’m hoping for the best, minimal crop damage. The wind machines woke me just after three. My alarm was set for three thirty but by then I was starting the pump. As soon as the sprinklers came on ice started to form on the metal bridge. The only thermometer I have is the car thermometer and it’s usually accurate: 35 degrees right now. Lee just called and it is 33 degrees at her house and she's going up the hill to the greenhouses to cover the tomatoes. I guess I will go take a look around. It’s cold!! out there and a lot of ice. It is five thirty now and I hope this works because our irrigation system was designed to irrigate not for frost protection.

Frost Warning!!!

Last Saturday it was almost 90 degrees and yesterday we put out irrigation on the Strawberries, Tomatoes and Asparagus because they were calling for possible frost. This morning I went out to the field at 3:00AM to check. There was a light breeze which kept the temperature up in the low forties with no frost. If it had dropped into the low thirties I would have started the pump to protect the crops. Hopefully tonight will be warmer.

Frost again this morning. We use a lot of mulches and one disadvantage is it insulates the ground, not letting it  warm up. This spring we have had some frost damage in the strawberries and asparagus because of this.