Very hard winter this year
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Toasted nanner trees. Guess I'm not getting bananas this summer.
My greenhouse is largely toast right now thanks to the Arctic blast that dropped temps way below normal. No other winter has affected the plants like this one – the earth-mass has performed marvelously in all the winters without extra heating. This time around, the earth-mass still performed well – I would have lost everything otherwise – but it wasn’t quite enough. Normally, the worst that happens is a few browned banana leaves on really cold nights. This time around is another story altogether – that Arctic blast was severe for this part of the country. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it so devastated. I have had less damage in top-side greenhouses with failed heaters. I’ll only know what survived come Spring. It’ll be painful, tho, to haul out all the dead pots and try to catalog the losses. Many of these plants I’ve had for years and some are from seed.
Navel oranges and strawberry guava are looking great.
Even the sugar-cane is brown – that’s usually a fairly semi-hardy grass. The bananas are completely browned but will come back, of course. As will the taro. Hopefully. Actually – the taro in the 25-gallon bucket-lo’i has faired the best – browned above the water, but fresh and alive below the surface even with some green keiki just waiting to break surface and start growing! I’m convinced for most of my taro that lo’i growing is the way to go – tho some will have to be upland if by their nature. Oddly, this water is in containers – the only earth-contact is with the bottom. So, just from the water’s own mass and slowness to change temperatures my taro has been preserved. I’ll keep this in mind when I build new larger lo’i patches – flooded beds in which I’ll grow a greater quantity of taro.
Ti is also toast. Thankfully, they're root-hardy and will come back from the roots in the Spring.
Anyway, the avocado is toast. I hope it comes back in the Spring – it was one tough tree. The inga-bean trees are likewise browned – but they’ve been browned before and came back so I’m hopeful they return this time too. Most of the ti is toast – but they come back from their roots so I’m not worried about them. Surprisingly, the strawberry guava is still growing! New growth tips even! As well as my macadamia nut tree! I’ll remember those. The Xanthosoma is mostly browned but for green central spikes that will put out new growth as soon as it warms. The split leaf philodendron likewise. I’ve probably lost a lot of my sugar-loaf pineapples! I’ll have to get new starts of those, sadly. The cherimoya is browned – I’m hoping it comes back too. My Navel orange looks great – another example of hardiness in the midst of catastrophe! That puppy is getting potted up this Spring and I’m going to get oranges from it.
The taro Pi'iali'i keiki (offshoots) is still green and ready to start growing!
I so can’t wait to get a permanent cover on this greenhouse instead of the enclosure I have in it now. Even more so now. I know the metal walls of the enclosure are a big part of the problem. This, however, is the first time I’ve seen this much damage tho. It’s been easy to put off the renovation before because the winters just haven’t been a problem so far. But, too many days in the teens, this very frigid winter. Oh well – I need to re-organize the greenhouse come Spring anyway. I’ll replace the losses once I’ve gotten some better organization. I need to finish my larger bucket-lo’i project. So far it’s been nothing but seven 25-gallon mosquito factories. Time to get some good silt and clay in them, get them flooded and get taro planted in them.
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