Jack Frost

Early Sunday morning I found the lawn white with frost and delicate plants brittle with ice covering.  This is a clump of Californian poppy, tucked in a corner of one of the vegetable boxes.  All three boxes are so exposed not one plant escaped Jack Frost's nippy fingers.  I watered the garden to wash away the ice and some will recover but a few delicate plants are burned black.

This lettuce may not survive and I will have to put in more seedlings.  I suppose I would have to cover the boxes if frost seemed likely.

This was a healthy Cape Gooseberry bush full of flower buds but I would have to cut it back as the affected parts are limp and quite dead.

This Kashmiri chilli bush seems to have recovered but I will pick the chillies before they become frozen with the next icy morning.

The parsley and baby kale may look beautiful with the frosty edging but another attack will surely kill the plants.  The kale are looking good and I am hoping they will be providing me with leafy green in late winter and early spring.

These broad beans and snow peas have since picked up.  They will be the main producers in spring so I will have to cover them up next time the temperature is going to plummet.  We have not had this kind of frost in a few years.

Blackened and dead is this tall clump of white tree dahlia.  On the Saturday the beautiful white flowers were looking good against the blue wintry sky and they would have lasted another week or two of a good show but they are looking quite unkempt now so will be chopped down.  I expect a few more frosty mornings to come but so long as I remember to protect the delicate specimens before bed time, I should not suffer too many losses.