DISASTROUS FROST

The sun rises now about 5.30am and I didn’t stir from my bed until 6.30am so I never witnessed the white sheet of frost that others say they saw this morning. Frost is always one of the big problems faced by gardeners who live in areas where sub-zero temperatures are experienced. Here in the cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt we can usually expect our winter frosts to begin by the end of April and finish by mid-September, but great variability is shown when comparing the seasons of different years. In 2008 we had our first frost on 30th March and our last frost in mid-August.

My photos will tell the story.

Hang down your head frosted poppy and cry.

It is a well known fact that many plants only become susceptible to frost damage as they begin to bloom and their hormones change from growth to flowering. Although all the Flanders poppies blooming in the field this morning were cut by the frost, and several leaves will show burnt tips, the field will quickly recover, as the poppies are a weed of the wheat fields of Europe and like all weeds are hardier than most garden flowering plants. They germinate in the freezing cold weather of winter and begin blooming by mid-spring.

I felt great dismay when I saw the state of my potato plants. I knew when I planted them in August that I would have to prevent frost damage for a few weeks by heaping straw mulch to cover them. However, as the frost danger period appeared to be past and they grew ever higher I had discontinued covering them.

Black leaves on potatoes

I phoned a former potato farmer and asked his advice.

“Are the stems still green?” Glen asked.

“Yes.”

“Throw some urea over them and apply lots of water. They’ll grow new leaves.”

I am an organic gardener and I use natural fertilizers like my homemade compost. I recognized that this form of nitrogen would be too slow working to stimulate growth, so having asked for advice, I decided to take a pragmatic approach this time. I obtained a small bag of urea and broadcast it over my potatoes, went to the river, fueled and primed the pump, and began irrigating my whole garden and Remembrance Field.

Now my real concern is for the vineyards and orchards of the Granite Belt.  The frost cut my grape vine shoots. I wonder will I lose my crop of cherries, already set on the tree.

Grape vines at fence height

These fence height grapes are the same height as the trellised wine grapes in the vineyards. It is never easy to be a farmer but the climate in this part of Australia often seems to be vindictive. When they come, the summer rains sweep down from the north and the winter rains sweep up from the south. Some years we get both summer and winter rains. Some years we get neither. In the weather rainfall map released for the week ending 13th October the Granite Belt of southern Queensland was coloured yellow. Yes, we had received 10mm rain that week, not that it did much good as it was followed by strong Westerly winds and more dust.

Australian rainfall map

Drought or floods

I’ve drawn two lines through the section of Australia where I’ve lived all my life. The region extends south from the the Bunya Mountain range of Queensland down to about Glen Innes in northern New South Wales – straddling the border of two states.

Much of western New South Wales and Victoria have been in the grip of drought for almost ten years. Here we have had patchy rain during these years, including a flood in May  2009 which filled our dams and Severn River catchment. Although the winter and spring months have been dry the farmers of the Granite Belt had irrigation water to plant their crops of cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes and capsicum. After this frost so many of these crops will be lost. The farmers will be obliged to replant their fields at considerable cost.

My climbing beans, tomatoes and four cucumber plants I bought in a punnet have been destroyed. I’m grateful that more climbing beans, butter beans, cucumbers, melons and sweet-corn seed I planted last week had not yet germinated.

Iceland poppy and Cosmos plants

When looking at photo like the one above it is easy to see that the Iceland poppies are much more frost hardy than the Cosmos which have shriveled to nothing.  I had begun planting out cosmos seedlings to fill spaces in my flower beds, as they are a fast growing summer flower. The tomatoes and other summer vegetable crops of the district will have met the same fate as my cosmos.

I’ve lost my grapes, mulberries, Kiwi fruit and pecan nuts. The fig trees will lose their first leaves, but will recover to grow more leaves and bear an autumn crop of fruit, as will the persimmon tree. Many of the deciduous shrubs which had just produced green spring leaves and the perennials in the garden are frost tipped, but they too will recover.

Trixie beside frost tipped salvia.

The show will go on. The garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B will open for the Australian Open Garden Scheme on 7/8 November. Fay will sign her book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine in which she details some of the other seasonal difficulties she has encountered during the establishment of this remarkable garden.

Book Cover

Das Helwig Haus B&B owned by Eberhard and Fay Helwig is situated at Glen Aplin, near Stanthorpe on the Granite Belt of southern Queensland, Australia.

This is a region noted for Australian wildflowers, four wilderness National Parks and sixty wineries. In 1997 Eberhard and Fay established the Remembrance Field of red Flanders poppies, a European wildflower.

To obtain Fay’s book Wildflowers, wilderness and wine email Fay on helwig@halenet.com.au

Internationally it is available on the Amazon.com website.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ACXQ0M/sr=8-1/qid=1244294755/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1244294755&sr=8-1&seller=

http://stores.lulu.com/strictlyliterary

http://books.google.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australian, cool mountain climate, Das Helwig Haus B&B, flanders poppy, frost, Glen Aplin, Queensland, remembrance field, the granite belt, Wildflowers wilderness and wine

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