Oh, The Irony. . .
This is my garden as it stands this afternoon. As you can see I am growing a wide variety of high-density polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate. Looks like it's going to be a bumper crop this year.
The real truth is, I am wasting valuable polyCARBONate plastics in an effort to save my vegetables from a freeze that is coming this evening. In 1957 the low was 37 degrees. Tonight it is expected to drop to 31 degrees. A 50 year old record soon to be broken in central Mississippi. What can I do?
I've wasted 28 valuable plastic garbage bags and several grocery store bags for what?
I planted this garden with the idea that I can "take up" some carbon by growing plants, while feeding myself, family and friends, therefore saving gas by not having to drive to the grocery store to purchase vegetables and subsequently helping protect the environment from the proliferation of carbon.
Ironically, it is carbon that my plants thrive on and now I am choking them to death inside of an impervious carbon sack that will slowly fill with the exudations of oxygen from the plants themselves hoping that tomorrow I can release them from their corrosive prison once the "Global Warming" takes back over.
Do I waste the plastic carbon to save my plants so I don't create more carbon by having to drive all over looking for new plants or buying vegetables from a carbon belching grocery store? Or do I let them die, because the carbon bags will eventually end up useless in a landfill anyway and then drive all over buying new plants while producing carbon with my vehicle that other plants will happily suck up? Would that create more or less carbon?
I guess in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter anyway. I could just buy a few carbon credits, ditch the guilt and confusion, and let Al Gore take care of the problem.
You know, for a place that's supposed to be warming, I got news for ya, it's awful cold Al. And you're an idiot.
So much for global warming Toast. I hate cold weather more and more as I get older. When I think of Miss. I always picture hot and humid weather conditions. Not thirty-degree freezes.
I had to right-click on the greens you've posted to find out what they are. They sure look healthy. Now I know what Romaine Lettuce looks like in the ground. Do you use smudge pots when you get freezes like this? An old Greek guy I used to work with ran an Avacado ranch and used pots when it got too cold.
I guess living on the left-coast isn't a total drag. It's been in the low nineties the last few days. Finally cooled of this morning.
Hot and humid correctly identifies our summers. Our winters are cold and wet and this little cold snap is not so unusual. It should be the last as they are predicting a high of nearly 80 tomorrow or the next day. We had snow in April when I was a teenager. I guess erratic would sum up our Spring weather.
I've never used smudge pots, but I have dragged the 55-gallon burn barrel into the middle of the garden, stoked a huge fire (without using gasoline!) and let it burn throughout the night. It worked.
I just pulled all the bags and I've got some damage to the tomato, potato and pepper plants, but they'll survive, nothing a little pruning won't fix. The collards, garlic, hearty lettuces and swiss chard are all fine. I didn't even cover those up.
I know what you mean about cold weather. I hate it and it took me forever after living years just above to equator to readjust to cold weather. My blood was ultra thin to the point where air-conditioning in a car would bother me.