Happy new years everyone 🥳

I got an early start on my tomatoes and started seeds indoors for orange cherry tomatoes for the spring. I want to transplant in early March to get a fast start to hopefully get a May harvest before the bugs invade lol. Mustard greens are coming along, still to small to pick. I finally have some tomatoes on the vine from my Fall planting. Should be able to pick soon. We are having a mild winter here, 60s-70s during the day and 40s at night. If we bypass having a freeze in February, I may have overwintered tomato plants 😆

Today we hit 48F so I took advantage of the "warm" weather and dug up the rest of the carrots. Washing them off outside any colder and the old fingers hurt. Got about 100 nice ones with some real baby carrots tossed in. Might get another pickin' from the collards as the cold wave returns soon enough according to predictions....... they predicted a warmer than normal Jan too but it may end up being one of the coldest.

Whew! Looks like many of us will be in the Deep Freeze Zone next week with deep snow in the deep south. We expect temps to dip into single digits mid week here with possible snow Tues/Wed. Glad I dug up the carrots but this should end the collard's run. Houston Tx may even get a couple of inches of snow with deeper amounts along the Gulf Coast. Good luck out there!

Yeah I saw on the news the cold weather moving in soon! Not looking forward to it. I will cover the cabbage and lettuce. Not sure it will help, hope it does. Hubby wants to cover the tomato plants too. I have one lonely turnip in the garden lol. I used some older seeds, and only got one that came up. Turnip should be ok 😂

We had temperatures in the 20s here for a week so everything outside is mostly dead. I have been trying to post pictures all month. Hopefully I can get my phone to work too. Had lots of peppers and tomatoes that I pulled before the freeze hit and brought a few things inside-mostly peppers and tomatoes lol

The veggie garden is shot here too but that's expected, my main concern now is if our 2 fig trees survived ok. They have been frozen back to their roots 3 times over the past 22 years and this may be the 4th? Will know for sure by late April. The pomegranate bush is also a question mark now.

Vgkg, my trees are looking pretty rough too. The Acocado tree looks dead and my stand of banana trees were covered in snow, but I did cover them with about 2.5 feet of black mulch, so hopefully some of the trunks will survive. I did move the Meyers lemon tree inside before the cold, so it is looking good.

The snow finished off the tomato plants and the mustard greens. I did have mulch on the mustard greens. Anyone know if I cut the mustard green stalks to the nub, if they would regrow? Was curious about that. Our cabbage looks to be doing good though. The snow is mostly melted now.

I think your mustard will grow back as the daylight and temps go up if the roots are ok.

It's a cut and come again type of green.

It can be a little iffy. I had some mustard that lasted all winter and some that just fried at the start.

Okie HU

Happy to report my mustard greens are growing back after being trimmed down abit. I was able to weed around the carrots this week with the nice weather we are having. Started seeds for cucumbers, dill, marigolds and bell peppers. The cherry tomato plants I started indoors in December are coming along good. Will transplant those in March. How is everyone's garden going? My cabbage needs more growing to do.

Well Sharon today it's snowing here :-) but that will serve as a nice blanket covering my fall planted and very young spinach seedlings (again). I almost finished thinning them out last week and once this snow melts and after the coming rains this weekend are over I hope to do one last thinning, add fert (Espoma Gardentone), and mulch the rows with compost. The spinach should be ready for their first picking by mid-March if the rest of the winter is forgiving.

Otherwise I'm drawing up a garden planting sketch for Spring/Summer plantings and have almost finished topping off my seed inventory.
One advantage of this snow and colder temps is that the fruit trees are staying dormant, some years they will wake up in Feb due to a warm Jan, not this time. Now if I can just avoid a late freeze things should be ok. Still need to see some life signs in the pomegranate and fig trees, maybe by late April?

I'm just sorting seeds and getting equipment set up to start leeks and some cold weather crops like brussels sprouts. I'll plant tomatoes/peppers/eggplant in mid March as I won't be able to plant outside until mid-May at the earliest. I try to get lettuce, potatoes, onions and leeks, some carrots and beets in the ground the beginning of May but sometimes there is still snow and frozen ground, so I just wait.

Annie

Got a bunch of squash (mostly scallop varieties with straight neck and crook neck yellow varieties) pepper and tomato plants. It is supposed to be in the 20s next week, so hopefully I can keep them from freezing. Thought the banana stand and the avocado tree might make it, but now they have to withstand another onslaught of cold. Will start some bok choy and a few other vegetables after the freeze is over

Wrap your bananas in that white agricultural fabric. That's what the Brits do. From what I've heard, the cold snaps in Texas are due to global warming. Global warming reduces the Arctic vortex, which keeps cold air in the Arctic. When the vortex is disrupted, winds can blow that cold air south.