Post by blueadzuki on Sept 15, 2014 10:20:49 GMT -5
"after the frost has come..." (sing with me)
Okay, okay seriously now
I had a quick question about what frost does to crops
Because of the nature of my beans and the weather here, I have long since resigned myself to the conclusion that, if I want any sort of a harvest, I am going to have to play a game of brinksmanship/chicken with the weather. That is I have to leave everything out there that is not ripe until the frost has ACTUALLY come; I don't have the luxury of pre picking (mostly because if I do do that, I'll end up picking everything at the first warning, and end up losing even more of my crop to premature harvest than what I will lose from the frost itself.)
So my question is as follows. Obviously anything still out there when the frost comes is a write off vis-a-vis seeds (before you bring up taking the plants and hanging them upside down in your garage or moving them into pots, don't bother, I've tried both and they don't work on rice beans the way they do on common ones. At least the only pods that can mature under those circumstances are so mature already I could simply pick them up front and have them finish inside.) But what about as veggies, i.e. EATING them. To your knowledge, is there anything in the process of freezing outside that would make the pods inedible? Obviously the texture would be mushed up, but I think they still might be usable as part of a soup or stew, somewhere where the beans pods going soft is not a big deal. For all I know I might even be able to get them into the freezer while they were still frozen (if say, it turns out that rice beans can take some frost, like peas can, and the "point of no return" isn't when the frost shows up but when the temps drop down to FULL TIME sub zero*) So provided get out there in a timely manner, say the morning after the freeze (statically, the first frost will probably occur at night) will they probably be salavageable or is it "total loss the moment the frost touches"
* Since I have never been able to resist my panic previous years, I don't know this. At final harvest it, has always been easier to pull the plants up in their totality, rip the pods off and toss the leftovers onto the mulch pile. So I've never seen what happens to them when the frost ACTUALLY arrives.
Okay, okay seriously now
I had a quick question about what frost does to crops
Because of the nature of my beans and the weather here, I have long since resigned myself to the conclusion that, if I want any sort of a harvest, I am going to have to play a game of brinksmanship/chicken with the weather. That is I have to leave everything out there that is not ripe until the frost has ACTUALLY come; I don't have the luxury of pre picking (mostly because if I do do that, I'll end up picking everything at the first warning, and end up losing even more of my crop to premature harvest than what I will lose from the frost itself.)
So my question is as follows. Obviously anything still out there when the frost comes is a write off vis-a-vis seeds (before you bring up taking the plants and hanging them upside down in your garage or moving them into pots, don't bother, I've tried both and they don't work on rice beans the way they do on common ones. At least the only pods that can mature under those circumstances are so mature already I could simply pick them up front and have them finish inside.) But what about as veggies, i.e. EATING them. To your knowledge, is there anything in the process of freezing outside that would make the pods inedible? Obviously the texture would be mushed up, but I think they still might be usable as part of a soup or stew, somewhere where the beans pods going soft is not a big deal. For all I know I might even be able to get them into the freezer while they were still frozen (if say, it turns out that rice beans can take some frost, like peas can, and the "point of no return" isn't when the frost shows up but when the temps drop down to FULL TIME sub zero*) So provided get out there in a timely manner, say the morning after the freeze (statically, the first frost will probably occur at night) will they probably be salavageable or is it "total loss the moment the frost touches"
* Since I have never been able to resist my panic previous years, I don't know this. At final harvest it, has always been easier to pull the plants up in their totality, rip the pods off and toss the leftovers onto the mulch pile. So I've never seen what happens to them when the frost ACTUALLY arrives.