Our Arugula Beats the Freeze!

It’s early November and it’s officially fall. The trees are dropping their final leaves and the cold is creeping in. That means frost! We had our first big freeze the other night and we had no idea what was going to become of our baby greens. Dave W stopped by to check on them at 6am and, as suspected, the little guys were frozen stifff. Were they going to be little piles of much come morning thaw like the many wilted frozen bags of spinach we’ve left in ice boxes turned up too high?

When we went back, we found the little guys were A OK! But why?!  Typically, when you have greens in the fridge, there’s a lot of water in the leaves. When it gets to freezing, the water expands and bursts the cells, making for the green mush you didn’t get to turning into a salad. The thought is that with the hearty greens, the moisture goes into the roots when it gets too cold so that the cells don’t burst… fact of fiction, only the internet will tell. (Here’s at least why buds don’t freeze.. plant anti-freeze?!)  All we know is that we harvested some arugula that day which we shared with the Ashram lunch crew and it was DELICIOUS. (Janka couldn’t wait that long).

Full coverage by Winnie Au here.