My Garden Survived the April Snow in Colorado

I planted last weekend, and then several inches of snow fell, starting the next day. We had several days of snow this April. A good thing for the drought, a bad thing for, well, people who really want spring to start. I guess the former is better.

I covered my lettuce and spinach (and rhubarb because it was close to those) with a light row cover the morning I knew it was going to snow. I laid it loosely over the plants and staked it down. I'm not sure if they really needed it, given the hardiness of a lot of lettuce and spinach types. I left the kale open and the onions.

My garden is in the bottom left of this picture, the day it was snowing. This isn't the full amount of snow we received.

I checked on it the next day or may have been the second day after the snowfall, when the snow had started to melt.



You can see my row cover did not go all the way across the garden. I am guessing the snow helped insulate the plants under it, as well.

My kale after day 2 of the snowpokalypse. It was doing fine. The snow had melted a lot at this point, and the kale did not seem to mind.

And finally, I took over the row cover when I knew the freezing nights were over. The spinach fared well:

And the lettuce, while smooshed, did OK as well.

Unfortunately though, the kale has taken a turn for the worst. This was just the start of the kale weakening. It's weakened further, and I am not sure if it is transplant shock (given how quickly it got cold after I planted it) or just that I have overestimated the amount of moisture the ground received during the snow, and I have not watered enough. My drip system is not yet down, and I probably have taken that for granted in the past.

Today I went out and fed the plants. I had not yet fertilized, which was probably my first mistake. So I did so today with Alaska fish fertilizer, which made my plants grow practically overnight last year, and I also gave the garden a good soak. I hope it helps!