Friday, September 19, 2014

Early frost in Ottawa

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Cabbage

And the garden
Drunk from a summer's revelry
Wakes uncertain to frost

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Cosmos

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Prince's plume

I had a wonderful morning watching the frost add its glistening touch to the garden. Before the tender plants blackened and wilted, they were caught frozen but perfect. As the sun swept across the gardens, there was a sound like the faintest bells and the drip, drip as the ice melted.

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Sunflowers as if in mourning

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Variegated alpine strawberry

Though most of at the frost tender crop had been harvested, I covered some rare root crops that I am trying. The ground was still moist and warm so they were fine. I was intrigued by the dahlias however as frost seem to dance among them: hitting some but not others.

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Some of my oca from seed as part of a selection project - both selection for earliness and cultivation tech. Covered by one of my favourite garden tools: the under-the-bed tupperware container.

Litchi tomatoes proved once again that they were tough.

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Litchi tomato - not a tomato (though related), not a litchi is mild-frost tolerant.

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A few hours after frost flowering and fruiting.

These pumpkins look to me like revellers awaking to face the next day.

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Until next year pumpkins.

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