Six Figs Farm LLC

Y’all, Christmas was cold. We hit a low temp of 8 F (or -13 C), with wind chill of very much lower. Thursday night, we had rain, strong winds, and a sudden drop in temperature.

We don’t have a livestock barn. In addition, we don’t keep water heaters. Our coop and other structures are built primarily with lots of ventilation to keep animals through high summer temps. We have a high tunnel filled with figs and strawberries. We’re a small farm in Georgia, with no employees, and I’ve never experienced temperatures this cold with animals to keep safe.

We moved 3 chicken tractors (animal shelters) in a row, and put a humongous tarp over top of them. Then, we anchored them from each side and over the top with rope attached to ground anchors. We covered the ground with straw. We put our youngest, most susceptible birds, our 11 week old pullets, in the middle. We moved the ducks on one end, and the geese on the other. We put straw down, and debated heavily the potential dangers of fire hazard, but ended up putting in heat lamps. Ducks and geese don’t sleep at night, and they need water available, so we were hoping to keep the water from freezing. We kept the animals inside until it got above 18 degrees F, and broke their water regularly through the day and night during the coldest time.

I’m happy to report all our animals made it through safely.

We ran the propane heaters and fans in the high tunnel. We’d used these successfully in November, so we knew they would work to some extent, but down to the forecasted low of 8 degrees F?? We covered the strawberries with frost cloth and black plastic just in case, and set our remote temperature alarms. We were able to keep the temperature in the high tunnel above 25 F at all times, and below the plastic stayed above 28 F. Success!

Meanwhile, our outside plants….the garlic and asparagus should be fine, as well as the elderberries, blackberries, and blueberries. However, the outside figs already had some damage from starting off the season with a hard freeze before they had gone dormant. Figs are hardy down to 15-20 F. Will they survive? Time will tell. I’m expecting them to die back to the roots, but hopeful that the roots, being heavily mulched, will survive and regrow. Anticipating the upcoming weather, we took about 100 fig cuttings from our outside figs on Wednesday, as insurance. If need be, we’ll be able to start over.

We’ve had a lot of questions. Below are a few.

Why was this so hard for Georgia farmers? It gets that cold lots of places.

In Georgia, we’re ready for the heat. Our coops and barns are built with ventilation in mind. We select or breed our animals for heat tolerance. Plants are selected for heat tolerance. We expect it to get cold. It does every year, down to 15-20 degrees. Usually that happens in January, when we’ve already had cold weather and the animals and plants are ready for it, and acclimated to the cold. This was in December, after weather in the 50’s. In addition, we had a night with crazy rain, gusting wind, and dipping down below freezing. There’s only so much you can do with that- row covers often can’t withstand it, and many livestock shelters aren’t built to withstand 40 mph winds, ice, and rain, all within hours of each other. We were grateful to have so little damage.

How will this affect our next season:?

We don’t know. We might have lost many of our fruit trees and bushes. Other plants that survive might be damaged enough to not thrive in the next season. Unhealthy plants draw pests and disease. Mostly, we’re waiting to see what the rest of the winter brings. We hope to have a fig crop of some sort in 2023, but it will likely not be what we hoped. Our garlic and elderberries should be fine. Other crops, well, it’s too soon to say. We’re working on planning ways to be more resilient, as this habit of extreme weather fluctuations seems to be the new normal.

What can folks do to help?
Support your local farmers. Purchase from them. They have worked their butts off, and often have lost much, in spite of that. Come to farmers markets. Look to groups who are helping farmers dealing with losses and see what you can do to help.