And I am not sure how else to think of it.
We had a summer freeze this week. That was not a good thing. It took out about 130 tomato plants that were finally starting to produce well. All of the plants at the Ness farm had been covered with sheets to protect them, but overnight someone missed the turn near their home, drove down the hill, into the garden, taking out one of the pea trellises, about a third of the tomato cages, and about a third of the squash before exiting the other end of the garden. Their vehicle also stripped the sheets off of the tomato cages so all of the tomatoes not smashed by the vehicle, then froze over the course of the night.
For the Red Wing garden, I called my mother and asked her to pick and bring in all of the tomatoes. Today I drove down there to finish picking the corn and assess the conditions of everything else in the garden. The beans are shot, with the exception of the Christmas Lima beans. Those did not appear to be killed by the frost. What confused me was that all of my tomatoes down there were dead and on the ground. When I asked my mom why she didn’t bring them in, she told me I never asked her to pick them. I reminded her of the phone call earlier in the week, and her response was “oh, I thought you just meant my tomato plants”.
So, after losing a third of my total plants earlier in the year to heat stress, blight, and wilt, I just lost well over half of what was left to an early freeze and what was probably a drunk driver.
I have lost crops to freezes before, but never poor driving.
Still not sure what to think of it.
