First Frost

I woke up this morning to find a hard frost on the ground, the first frost of the year in Newport News.  I've been expecting it, but for some reason was surprised to see it through my bleary, tired eyes.  The air was crisp, and so were my veggies!  Fortunately most of my plants are hardy and tolerate frost quite well, which is a major reason I planted them.

Frosty head of Winter Density lettuce.

This Winter Density lettuce head was very frosty.  If you look closely, you can see where the dew initially beaded up on the surface and then froze when the temperature dropped.

My carrots held up well.  The roots seemed unfazed as I walked around the garden in my slippers, but the weight of the frost caused the carrot tops to bend down at an awkward angle.  This isn't overly important because the roots themselves are what I plan on eating (even though you can eat immature carrot greens).

Carrot tops, a bit on the chilled side of things.

My bed of kale was indeed happy to feel the freeze.  Kale often benefits from a frost or two, and I'm hoping to make some kale soup later this week.  Here is a pic of a kale plant with ribbons of frost tucked into the deeply ruffled leaves.

Crispy Kale.

Surprisingly my potted citrus plants, which I left outside all night and are still loaded with limes and lemons, were not covered in any frost.  I attribute this to the fact that they are positioned significantly closer to the house, which unfortunately is as well insulated as a hairless dog, and leaks heat to the outdoors.

My poorly insulated hairless dog, bathing in the sun to soak up heat.

I haven't had a chance to see how everything else in the yard tolerated the frost because it was already dark when I got home from work (a major bummer of the late months of the year).  But I'll likely post again sometime in the next few days with an update.