“I didn't think you would be out in the garden today as windy and cold as it is,” my friend said as she stood close to the farmhouse last Friday. She had come to pick up fabric to make cloth bags to use in our deliveries.

I came striding across the lawn, dressed in ski pants, winter jacket, hat and scarf. After warm weather in March, the cold, strong March winds had arrived in April. It felt bitterly cold. I had gone to the hoop house to uncover the plants I had covered the previous night to protect them from cold. Then I watered all my seedlings.

Before I went back to the house, I scanned the garden and noticed that the wind had blown the the fabric off the lettuce seedlings we had transplanted into the garden on Monday. Exposed to the strong cold wind, they would die quickly as the wind drew moisture out of their delicate leaves. I readjusted the fabric and weighed it down with additional bricks.

I was chilled as I came inside. I spent the rest of the morning in the kitchen, making two batches of kombucha and a batch of nettle beer. I also put the root kimchi I had made several weeks ago into quart jars to share with friends. As I finished my grocery shopping late afternoon, I heard that a freeze warning had been issued.

Cold wind is especially hard on me: however, I realized that I could lose my gooseberry crop if I did not protect them from the coming freeze. They had been in full bloom the previous day, their canes covered with slender soft-yellow flowers, similar in shape to wild honeysuckle blossoms. Were they to freeze tonight, that harvest would be gone.

I had read about a biodynamic preparation, BD 507, made from valerian. Sprayed on plants, it creates a coating of warmth that will provide several degrees of protection for vulnerable late season frost and freezes. The wind was supposed to abate after 7:00 p.m.; the freeze to start at midnight. I put a small dose of the preparation into a gallon of warm water and stirred for fifteen minutes.

Just at dusk, the wind calmed. I dressed warmly and sprayed the bushes. I cannot know if this will work: this may be the first time in fifteen years that the gooseberries were in full bloom just as late freeze hit. I will have to trust what I have read, what is recommended and my best judgment of what was needed. I came in exhausted and yet satisfied that I had met the moment with my best effort.

After I came in, I pulled out Stephen Harrod Buhner's book, Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, and read this in the introduction:

“Our ancestors seemed to ...understand that it is impossible to sand all the rough corners off life. They knew that what is crucial is not that bad things happen to us but what we do with those things after they occur. And it is this struggle to survive the burdens of our weaknesses and integrate tragedy into the fabric of our lives that defines our character, that teaches us our lessons, that allows us to develop as human beings.”

I met the bitter cold with as much warmth as I could muster. I will only know later in the season whether I will have warmth enough to face the challenges that may still confront me and the gooseberries. Will we have a harvest? Surely, I will have a harvest of experience, but of gooseberries? I cannot say. They are calling for another freeze tonight.