Papaya-Valencia-Fig Freeze Pictures

I'm posting these pictures for those interested
in what freeze damage can look like.

A couple weeks ago we had an unusual freeze.
It was 70-80F for weeks...then all of a sudden
a 14 hour freeze where it dipped to 25F. It is
70's again now, but the aftermath isn't pretty.

My papayas (upper left) had produced big fruits for years, are
planted next to warming brick, and one had overhead
coverage from an eve. You can see fruit on one.
In years past they got burned a little...now they look
like nuclear war hit, and it is still our warmest
winter month.

I had Xmas lights on in my fruit orchard, including
the Valencia orange (upper right) in this pic. It had about a
thousand golf ball sized green fruits on it that
froze, then molded, then got picked off to
prevent mold going to the leaves.

I had the oldest fig in these parts die years
ago from cotton root rot. Before that it had
replanted itself from branches 20 feet from the
original trunk (lower middle). The new trees had produced several
crops of nice figs for years. You can see despite
shelter from a cedar tree they totally bit the dust.



These plants are helpless when it is 80F during the day
then freezes at night...a relatively new phenomena. I
have a huge hackberry tree that lost all of its green leaves
in two days following this...never got brown. Same
with some peaches that were blossoming.

I know that it is heartbreaking to see your plants take that hit, and knowing you lost the fruit crop is sad, too. I hope things come back. Wow, 80 to 25 is a big drop. After I get over loss, I figure that the plants that remain after such adversity are really meant to be there.

That happened in Dec of last year. It went from 85 to snowing in about 5 hours time. I think the temps only dropped to 28 degrees so there wasnt as big of a loss.

Yes, these BIG SWINGS have happened here
now for a couple years. And I live 30 minutes from
the Gulf. My forecast for the next week is only 55/37F
in town, and that can vary to freezing outside of
town where there is no concrete (me). All the bananas are
dead in town, and lots of Magnolias burned up.

On Xmas I talked with all kinds of friends around
the world. People in Ontario, New York, Scotland...all had
higher morning temps...1200+++ miles North.

Very weird.

While I was in sunny California last week it got to
be 17F and 19F on successive nights here breaking the
1962 record by 5F.


My fruit turned to mush and dropped off, my trees turned black,
and the small amount of growth my fig tree had in trying to come back
shriveled up and fell off.

Its been so cold I'm thinking of applying to become Santa.

Happy New Year.

I had 11 degrees at my orchard and 14 at the house. It will be interesting to see what sprouts from the ground in spring as many of my trees were wiped out.

I would say a good success was a cloth painters tarp over my While Sapote, 24 degrees hardy, with a 40 watt bulb. It appears to be okay.

The satsumas look like they will do okay. I have a Washington seedless Navel that looks like it did pretty good. Calamondins are in bad shape as well as Opal Avocado are looking poor. The Surinam Cherry and tropical Guavas are just gone. I am glad this winter will be a 20 year event. I am even happier about the drought being a 50 year event.

The Pineapple Guavas look completely uneffected by the cold. I have a passion fruit vine that laughed off the cold. Too bad the fruit on that vine is mediocre. My Chilean Guava bushes are fine and I didnt even cover them. I will be sure to plant more of what makes it thru this winter.

Unfortunately, when I cover things while I am away
for a week it can get so hot some things actually cook.
They have to be secured all the way to the ground
or they could blow to OZ around here.
The 7-day forecasts called for nothing like any of this.

What has always worked for me were MANY stringed
Christmas lights through my small orchard with a dawn/dusk
timer. In this case, they switched off at dawn but freezing continued
until 11AM...a new thing for Mission Valley, I am told.

What are the odds of a 50 year drought and a 20 year freezing winter
happening back to back? As I recall prob/stat: 1 : 1000. Couple that
with a zero hurricane/tropical storm year. The odds of a
47 year old record shattered by a whole 5F are more complex...I personally
don't recall seeing this before. My neighbor tells me "The Valley" lost all
of it majestic palms in the 80's to freezes, but none apparently this cold.

I also have mandarins: Kimbrough and Satsuma that look OK,
and an orange of unknown origin that looks good, but a Valencia
that looks stone dead. One of my Myer's lemons has lost 80% of its
leaves even with the lights...but is alive.

One of them (looks better) is circled by inverted/corked champagne
bottles inserted in the soil full of water...a kind of decorative invention.
That seems to have saved that tree (with the lights); the tough glass
didn't burst from the freeze.

I am more grateful my exposed pool equipment, wellhouse, and house
plumbing made it unscathed. One power outage and they were shot. People
around here have pressure tanks sitting out in their yards.

Not belonging in this forum but I find novel: pots of mesclun mix lettuces
that seemed to thrive outdoors during this episode.