Thanks for the cold shoulder, Ma Nature…

Frigid Easter, isn’t? Ostara (March 24th) was ever so much nicer.  

Over the last few days, this HORRID cold front has blown in, and overnight temps have dropped below freezing. Yes, it WAS over 80 a few days ago. In-freaking-sane.

So. Luckily, it’s barely been a week since I planted, and the only thing that even looked like it had sprouted was one of the okra.

I used some cheap, translucent shower curtains I had gotten from the dollar store, and as it was cold as – well, it was cold out there, I took a short cut, and cut small holes for the posts on the corners of the beds, and secured the shower curtains to the bed that way.
It’s loose enough that air can flow under it, but close enough that dew shouldn’t form on the dirt itself, and thus, keep the dirt & the seeds a little warmer.

I considered watering, but figured that it wouldn’t be worth it with the risk of a freeze, and besides, the ground was still damp – definitely not moist, but certainly damp.

That was Saturday afternoon. I planned on watering them this morning, but when I went out there and tried to turn on the garden hose, not only did the sprayer things handle break, hunks of ICE came out of the hose.

Yeah. Ice. In April. It was 85degrees four days ago.

As expected, dew had formed on the underside of the plastic, and was dripping back down onto the dirt – and it was warm(ish) because of the sun hitting the plastic. Go makeshift greenhouse! I left them on – enough light gets through them, that the tradeoff for warmth is a good one. Nothing else sprouted, though.

We are relaxing at home today – I’m thinking about setting up in the library and working on my LibraryThing – hrm. I also need to read for class tomorrow.