Wow, this picture looks kinda spooky. No these aren't garden specters. You're looking at floating row covers on our remaining tomatoes and the new beds of greens and root veggies.
I was a little concerned about the heat under the plastic row covers on Saturday afternoon, but since we were expecting snow again on Sunday, I wasn't sure I should remove it. Maybe if I had been dedicated enough to drive back that evening to put it back on, things would have been okay. As it was, the plants got roasted.
Bill arrived on Sunday afternoon and took some temperature readings. Here's a recap:
Most of the plants under the plastic are suffering from sun scald. So we're done with the plastic now until fall. We’ll see if the plants pull through. We now know that the plastic will need to be replaced with floating row cover in March.
Bill has been monitoring temperatures inside the high tunnel and even pulled the row covers back for a while last week when we were slated for mild temperatures. Well I guess that was about the equivalent of packing away your hat and mittens, as far as Fate was concerned. She was tempted.
Temps hit 8 degrees last night, but it was still quite comfortable inside the high tunnel when I stopped by this morning. The plastic row covers help stabilize the temperature over the plants, keeping them warm enough during our cold nights. It was 71.3 under the plastic mid-morning today. Bill said temps hit 103 under the covers on Monday--astounding after 6+ inches of snow and wind we got the day before. Needless to say, he is monitoring and pulling them back when necessary.
