CAMPBELLSBURG, Ky. — As the colder weather starts to arrive, farmers are beginning to wrap up their season to prepare for the next but for one Henry County farmer it's quite the opposite but farmer, Joseph Monroe aka Jack Frost himself says he’s a big fan of the small white crystals.
“If you're looking for a farmer who is negatively affected by frost it's not me, I love the frost because there's so much you can still grow or that can survive and you can just kind of harvest when you want because the earth is like a little refrigerator right now,” farmer, Joseph Monroe said.
For Monroe that means later mornings to let his crops defrost before getting to work.
“These leaves, they're still frosty and so if I pick them now the stems are kind of rubbery they would stay that way but if they can stay attached to the plant until the sun thaws them out then it won't be a problem,” Monroe said. “So I'm picking the crops that are harder like the cauliflower and the carrots.”
The colder weather not only gives Monroe some sweeter vegetables but kills something no farmer ever wants to deal with.
“It doesn't matter if its vegetables or grain crops, the frost is going to kill like all of these other hosts for pathogens and insects and it'll kill the weeds and so the frost is actually a really good mechanism to help the producers control these things without chemical means so they love frost,” Dr. Carrie Knott, state agronomist/soybean specialist for University of Kentucky said.
Monroe understands just how harmful frost can be.
“If it gets down to 18 degrees or below you might see cells on a lettuce leaf burst and when that happens it just starts to spoil so you have to keep the cell wall intact,” Monroe said.
Why he invests in different frost protection tools like plastic to cover greenhouses and frost cloths so that Valley Spirit Farm can farm year-round.
“We need to be selling vegetables every week to have that income to make it through the winter so really these greenhouses, they spread out the work, we can be in here even on a rainy day and it's too wet outside to be doing something even when it is the main growing seasons,” Monroe said.
Joseph Monroe has been farming for 12 years and Valley Spirit Farm sells their vegetables and produce weekly at the Douglass Loop Farmers Market.