Well I’ll be frostbitten…

Yes, I know it’s 80°F today in Florida, but last weekend it was cold. I mean really cold — 32°F of cold.  And as I mentioned, it was over the weekend.

Unfortunately, the garden lady doesn’t go to school on the weekend.  Yep.  Covered my potatoes at home but at school?  No could do.

So I did what any wise old sage would do and planned this week’s lesson around the realities of life. 

“Sorry kids, Mother Nature got us on this one.  Layered the landscape in cold when we were least able to protect against it.”  (That, and your garden lady completely forgot about to bring sheets with her to school on Friday.)  It happens.  It’s real life.  We cope.

Printing out the pages, I tucked them in my pretty floral folder and went to school.  Walked the kids out to the garden and stopped cold in my tracks.  “What the–“

The potatoes were fine.  The tomatoes were fine. 

“But how can this be?”  I turned to the kids.  “These are supposed to be dead, frozen, ugly and brown.  Like mine, at home, were.”

 

But the school potatoes weren’t.  I whipped out my lesson sheet and scanned the list of factors affecting cold weather and plants and it dawned upon me.  It must be warmer in the city.  I live on the outskirts of town, lots of field and sky.  In town, there are plenty of warm houses to insulate the school garden.  Nice dark soil to retain the heat. 

“Huh.  What do you know.  We WILL have rosemary potatoes after all!”  Hip-hip-hooray! 

However, the lesson stands.  This is what COULD have happened to our plants. For full details, see: Cold Weather and Your Plants