By Clint Thompson
Back-to-back nights of sub-freezing temperatures this week ended North Florida’s fall vegetable season for all practical purposes. While some growers may scavenge their fields for any surviving fruit, most of the remaining crop was devastated by plummeting temperatures.
“The temperature on Tuesday morning was probably in the range of 31 (degrees Fahrenheit), plus or minus. There was some damage around. (Wednesday) morning, most of our FAWN weather stations looked like it reported 28 plus or minus,” said Bob Hochmuth, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Regional Specialized Extension agent in Live Oak, Florida.
“There’s a lot of these growers that straddle the line and farm in both states, but just about everybody is reporting that (Tuesday) night was significantly worse than the first night.”
Latter Part of Harvest Season
Hochmuth said are plenty of vegetable crops still being harvested this time of year, though, most were on the latter part of harvest season.
“For the most part things are winding down as we move into November. However, for this area, we would still have peppers; a little bit of cucumbers but mostly up in South Georgia; a little bit of squash and then you get into the bigger acreages which would be sweet corn, snap beans and dry beans or iron clay peas. There’s a lot of acres of iron clay peas,” Hochmuth said. “For example, one of the smaller growers that grows a lot of green beans of different types for the Thanksgiving market, he said they got roughed up the first night and were hoping they could get something out of it but then (Tuesday) night finished it.
“There’s still a fair bit of vegetables that are out in South Georgia and North Florida in November.”
There is a plethora of carrot acreage in the region. Hochmuth said older carrots are more cold hardy but younger ones were at risk.