Is it spring yet???

Two weekends ago I cut back several thousand brug seedlings that were damaged by our freeze. I also learned a valuable lesson, you really can get sick from handling brugs. I have not had a problem in the past, but I think because so many of the stems I cut back were oozing out sap, and the fact that I was wearing shorts and no shirt, was a bad combination. At first I just had puffy eyes and a major headache, but later ended up with cold like symptoms and insomnia.  It was not a pleasant experience, but I'm pleased to report that I am doing fine now.

Here is how my seedling growing area looked one morning of the freeze.



I ran the sprinklers in hopes that the ice would form a blanket and protect the plants. It did the job until we had two nights of 10+ hours below freezing with the temperature bottoming out at 25-26.

This is how everything looked a couple of weeks after the freeze -



Not all my brugs look as bad as these. I protected about 100 larger stock plants and lots of 4" plants that came through with little damage.

After two days of pruning things started to look a little bit better.



Although most of the tops were damaged, I believe the ice saved most of the seedlings. Had they not been iced over, the pots may have froze solid, killing the roots.

I still have lots of cleaning up to do to remove all the cuttings. I also have another growing area with larger plants that need selective pruning as they only received minor damage.



The good news is that as I was pruning I could already see new growth sprouting out from the base of many of the plants.

Next year I assure you I will have my greenhouse built for sure!