Early freeze leaves damaged gardens
Early freeze leaves damaged gardens
By ALLAN TINKER
The early frost, then freezing temperatures finished off all but hardy garden produce. It brought an end to the local farmers market, with gardeners gathering in produce for storage and ripening indoors, only root vegetables were left outside.
According to McClusky Co-op Elevator Manager Brian Larson it didn’t have much effect on crops. “Soybeans were already drying and ripe, or it didn’t seem to bother them,” he said.
Most corn in the area is silage-destined so frost impact for immature corn would be minimal anyway, said Larson.
Toby Kramer, also Co-op Elevator, had returned from looking at area crops and agreed that little frost impact was evident as most crops were either mature and dry or not affected.
The sharp drop in temperatures, from high eighties to freezing in a matter of four days time, brought an end to much of the yard work. Plums and apples were ripe and dropping from trees already, the freeze simply accelerated that process.
Many perennial fruits had enjoyed the heavy moisture and yielded well, even with the short time of hotter temperatures for maturity of fruits.
