yikes, we've been frostbitten!!!--Dianne

Here in Indiana we have had a wacky late winter/spring.  80 degrees and trees almost fully leafed out.  Flowers blooming 2-4 weeks ahead of schedule.  Lots of things blooming at the same time that usually never do....

After recovering from midnight Paschal service yesterday, April 15, I was up and  out trying to spread some mulch around in a front flower bed and found that my hostas got very frostbitten in a couple of frosts last week.  Their cells literally exploded in the leaves.  The leaves look watery, limp, and pale.  They feel almost slimey. 

I have hydrangeas that are blackened, all new growth has been killed off.  Several other shrubs in the garden are looking bad, like Rose of Sharon.  The newest leaves on some plants are dead, crispy, black ick on the ends of branches.

I had put out some early crop broccoli along with cabbages.  They are showing some stress, as in light patches on leaves.  I believe they will recover, since we had a nice rain in the night Saturday.

I have been researching what to do with my frostbitten plants... 

A) Leave trees alone.  They will put out new growth, and push off the deadened leaves.  Do NOT fertilize.  Do NOT prune heavily.  You may do some light trimming back of damaged leaves, but no heavy branch trimming.  Give it time to recover.

B) Hostas and other smaller plants, it is okay to trim them back.  They will also put out new leaves.  Do NOT fertilize.  Fertilizing them now puts extra strain on them to put out leaves while they are recovering.  It could overwork the plant.  In fact, what I read said not to fertilize them at all until next year. Tomatoes will probably not recover if frostbitten.

C)  Make sure your plants are getting enough water to continue new growth. It has actually been dry here, and I had been watering anyway.  Now I must continue, to reduce stress load on recovering plants.  

Having married a former corn/bean dairy farmer,  I have learned to "farm" as we drive around.  We inspect fields, and he tells me yet again what has been chisel plowed, but not planted.   Two weeks ago, as we drove to Lafayette, and a grain truck in front of us drove over the center line and then off the side on the right.  I was freaking out!  I screamed at Bill, "What's he doing up there?"  Because NO one wants a fully loaded grain truck to spill in front of them!  Bill swerved a bit too, and replied, "Well, he probably just saw that guy over there planting corn the first week of April."   Sheesh...See what happens when the weather warms up?

This appears to be a 5 row planter.  Some can have many more attachments on the back and plant huge fields in much less time.  See the fertilizer tank on the front of the tractor?
So, last week, driving back from Indy, I actually saw corn up about 3 inches in a field.  I hope it survived the frost.

Here's a picture of frostbitten corn, about the same size that I saw. 

Like last year, I have repotted tomato plants in a wheelbarrow, and have been dragging it in and out of the garage everyday.  No frost bite and the plants are doing well!!

woohoo!  Just received my new issue of Urban Farm in the mail, time to find and pass on the last one to Maria. 

I hope you have all found an allergy medicine that makes you feel better with this early onslaught of every freakin' allergen in the world that has descended upon us early this year.  Every morning I have to pry my eyes open, and then they are swollen most of the morning.

Happy Gardening!! 

Dianne, dirt, allergies, and all