I live in Central Otago and we had a frost two nights ago out of the blue. All the leaves of my veges have been badly frosted and turned black. Is there any saving the pumpkins, butternut etc if they have only just started to turn colour to ripen? I'm gutted - it's like a death in the family. I was so proud of it all and it's gone, I'm sure. You'd think after 9 years here I would predict disaster at the end of March but this one caught me by surprise. I could have cried.
teddy147,
Mar 20, 11:21pm
we are the same here but its our tomatoes.
mazzy1,
Mar 20, 11:38pm
It's a damn shame eh. At least it sounds as though you might be able to salvage some though, if they continue to ripen on a sunny windowsill. I'm pretty sure mine are kaput. :-(
oh_hunnihunni,
Mar 21, 1:08am
The punkins should be okay if their skins are hard and dense enough - I've seen pics of those ripening on snow covered ground lol. But the softer babies might be yukky inside.
mazzy1,
Mar 21, 8:28pm
Fingers crossed! I spent the morning pulling all the dead stuff out of the ground - too upsetting to see all the time. I feel much better now and have salvaged a butternut, a couple of crown pumpkins and the largest and most yellow of the spaghetti squash so will see how they go. The Kumara are all goneburger too - but hey - the lows and joys of gardening eh!
poppysinger2,
Mar 21, 9:27pm
It is such a bummer when that first frost hits, here in Sth Brighton the tomatoes plants are all looking dead but there hasn't yet been a frost here . You have done really well to get kumara that far south , I understood that it was marginal kumara growing anywhwere south past Banks Peninsula !
mazzy1,
Feb 27, 5:15am
Well to be perfectly honest I was conducting a bit of an experiment with Kumara this season, and started far too late. When I pulled up the dead vines there wasn't a whole lot of action beneath the soil to be fair. I will give it another go in the spring and start my slips in September. It's such a desert in Central Otago - freeze and fry. makes some damn fine pinot!
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