From This Dirt Forward

Okay.  I’ll admit it.  I have a love-hate relationship with frosts.  Though I cringe at the thought of any of my fragile young plants withering away on a chilly night, there’s something oddly pleasurable about scurrying around the farm on a crisp, clear evening, creatively outfitting the garden with an extra layer of warmth.  It feels similar to the exhilaration of preparing for a big storm.

As a newlywed couple, my husband and I are disadvantaged when it comes to preparing our gardens for a hard frost.  We haven’t aged enough to have correspondingly aged sheets and blankets to sacrifice as frost covers.  We’ve been forced to expedite the tattering of our pristine linens for the sake of our tender plants. 

Our strawberries got the royal treatment last night, tucked in under nearly new 800 thread count sheets.  Our zinnias cozied up to some soft L.L. Bean flannel.  Thankfully, the posh new sheets my Mom gave us for our wedding were on our bed, because that’s the first thing she asked when I mentioned our frost challenge on the phone to her last night.  “Oh, Annie, you didn’t put the Garnet Hill sheets out in the garden, did you?”  Whew, that was close.

Our strawberry plants got five-star frost treatment with this matching set of 800 thread count sheets

When the wedding gifts ran out, we moved on to a couple of blue tarps, and then upside-down plastic pots.  Our garden soon resembled a bright patchwork quilt. 

The morning after a frost is not quite so peaceful.  The sun doesn’t hit our gardens until about 7:15 AM, which lucky for my husband, is after he leaves for work.  This leaves me about 15 minutes to reverse an hour’s worth of work before I too need to leave. 

Whenever possible, I extend “Casual Fridays” to “Casual Frostdays”, but this morning I had an important business meeting and needed to look like I didn’t just crawl out of the garden.  Over the dress pants, blouse, and neatly pulled back hair, I layered on an oversized pair of sweatpants, my husband’s fleece-lined denim work jacket and rubber boots.  As soon as the sun cast its warmth on our hillside, I bolted out the back door, running (literally) in a race against the clock to strip down our gardens and move all the potted plants from inside the barn back to daylight. 

Maddie, our German Shepherd, got instantly riled up in all the commotion, going into uber-goofy mode, charging around the garden in broad circles and nose-diving into the soft flannel sheets.  Very helpful.  Then she pooped right in my path between the barn and the plant benches so I had to run, carry a heavy armload of plants, dodge fresh poop, and gag from the shockingly repulsive odor (must have been the deer leg she was gnawing on last night) — all at the same time.  Perhaps this is some higher power’s way of preparing me for the possibility of future motherhood.  I’ve never been so happy to get into my car and drive to work. 

I waltzed into the office only three minutes late, with a caffeine-free rush of adrenaline to get me through the morning, and amazingly, not a hint of garden (or dog) on me.  There’s something invigorating about leading the secretive double life of a working hobby gardener.