The Historic Winter Storm ofTexas

February 13–17, 2021

Last week, we experienced an unimaginably terrible week that shook the entire Texas. A cold wave from the Arctic brought a lot of snow to Texas last week that left many homes without power, water, and food for several days in the chilling temperature that went down to 2°F which is lower than -16 °c. Those who know about the weather in Texas can understand how unusual this storm was. First of all, snow in sunny texas is rare occurring. So people are not really prepared for such events. Overall it was a difficult week for us and my garden too.

check out how to prepare a garden for winter

Let’s see the garden before the winter storm.

You can clearly see that the plants are in distress. The temperature dropped down below zero at night and all these plants are looking stiffer because of the freeze. The beetroot leaves were looking almost waxy. You could literally roll the leaves. They had a rubbery consistency. It is because they were frozen at that moment. I knew that as the temperature would have risen they were going to thaw and then would have become mushy. and the plants wouldn’t survive. I had two options either to harvest the leaves or wait and see what happens. At that time, I just knew that an extremely cold stationary wave was here and a couple of snowstorms were going to follow it. The freezing temperatures were going to last at least for a week. Other plants like Fava Beans, carrots, kale, spinach, and coriander were also affected by the freeze. In comparison to the other plants, cabbage seedlings seem to be doing alright.

On the other side in raised beds, I had some more baby plants of kale, beetroots, and turnips.

I also have some Chinese kale/ chinese broccoli plants and I was waiting for the seeds to dry completely but I guess now there is no point in waiting. I harvested the seed pods and let them dry inside the house. If I had left them here then once the temperature comes back to normal. the wet seeds would have been ruined by the moisture.

After seeing my garden that day, I was mentally prepared to lose some of those plants. I knew I couldn’t have saved them all. That was so unexpected in Texas. I could have prepared better if I had started earlier but didn’t expect the weather to get this bad. I was hoping to harvest some fresh winter vegetables but maybe that was not happening this year.

So, what I decided to do was to salvage whatever I could. I harvested some turnips that were even though not completely ready but still were edible. I also harvested the fenugreek leaves that I was 100% sure wouldn’t have lasted in that weather.

Since some winter vegetables were in the plastic containers, I covered them up with lids while hoping for their safety.

I covered up the raised beds with whatever I had. I covered the bed with Brussels and kohlrabi with weed cloth. I used a plastic sheet to cover the turnips and garlic. I left peas, Chinese kale, and cilantro open since the sheet was not that big. The middle bed has some more turnips and I left them as they were to check their winter tolerance.

I tried to protect the fava bean plants with this cardboard box and a warming poncho that I used to cover the plants.

I had already protected my other delicate big trees like Moringa, Neem, and Orange months ago for winter. You can watch my video on how to protect trees during winter in my previous video.

Day 1

And the snow began. That was still not the blizzard that Texas was going to face. That was pre-blizzard snow. Birds were so confused with this sudden change. Like Texas, even birds were not prepared. They were flying crazily in huge numbers. I put some rice out for them but they were not eating. They looked so tired. It was hard for them to fly high up. They were just flying few feet above the ground. They, couldn’t even stop and stay in one place. I guess they were trying to stay warm by flying continuously. I have lived here for 6 years now and that was the first time we were seeing so much snow. Typically we get only a few flurries of snow in a season that too not every year. The snow has started filling up the beds. We managed to make a tiny snowman.

Day 2 of snow

The first blizzard had passed dumping about 4–6 inches of snow. The temperature was several degrees below zero and it was going to go down to 2°F which is lower than 16°c. I was worried about the plants but so far the beautiful snow was still winning. I didn't mind cold as long as we had power and water. Since we don’t get snow often, I believe the pipes and electric wires are not winterized as much as they do in colder regions. I had lived in the northeast part of the US for more than a decade and we lost power only once. That experience was really nasty and was not hoping to face that again.

My rose bushes looked like they had some white blooms on them. Our frosty, the snowman, had lost its original shape and looked like a small hill. There were many animal footprints all over the yard. I even saw a tiny mouse. I left him alone at that point but planning to take care of him now that the snow has stopped. Not a good visitor.

And then, we lost power for three days. Not completely because they were planned outages. Even though Texas is a state, it has its own power grid. The grid was strained due to high demand. We were getting power for about 15 minutes followed by 45 mins to 1 hour of outage. The rolling outages continued for the next three days. They even got longer for some time and then gradually faded, and stopped completely. But the major problem we had was our pipes. Half of the house pipes were completely frozen and hot water stopped coming in. The horrific news of pipes bursting were all over on social media and chat rooms. We were supposed to conserve energy and not use any appliances. So it was extremely hard to do the dishes with icy water and cook in the dark. We were in constant fear that anytime our pipes will burst. The inner streets were still snow-covered so no one could drive. It was very risky. Everything was so unusual for Texas. But then nothing was usual about the years 2020 and 2021 and Texas was not prepared. I was going out every day to make sure that no pipes are burst outside. After two days there was one more storm that added some more snow.

Finally, the nightmare ended and sun came out. The temperature was still below zero but the beautiful sunshine was melting the snow fast.

It didn’t take more than a day for the snow to melt away completely.

After The Storm

Now, it is time for the big reveal. Now let’s go out and check how the plants are doing.

Brussels and cabbage are still doing okay so they might survive. At the last minute, I had pulled in some containers of kohlrabi, fava beans, and spinach inside the garage and they survived.

Turnips really surprised me. I have turnips growing in three different beds. Before the storm, I harvested some which were almost ready. But then covered the rest with a plastic sheet. The other bed was left unprotected and guess what happened. The one under the plastic sheet became all soft and mushy and the plants in the unprotected bed still have crispy leaves and recovering well. My guess is that when I protected the turnips with a plastic sheet, they got crushed because of the weight of the snow.

I was more confident about the plants in the container but surprisingly they were damaged. Beetroots, spinach, carrots, and cilantro were completely ruined by the harsh weather. I removed the dead mushy leaves because I knew they were not going to survive. When emptied this compost bin container in one of the raised bed, the soil was completely frozen. My guess was that the water in the soil in these containers froze. We know that ice occupies more space than water. The plastic container couldn’t expand with the growing ice and crushed the roots.

How did the big trees do?

Coming on to the big trees. So far fortunately my trees Moringa, Neem Tree, Orange Tree, and all pomegranate trees are doing fine. The other trees are still in the safety of the garage so they were better protected. So overall, I was successful in saving many of my plants and trees. In just 2 days after the storm temperature went up to the mid-60s and 70s. That is how crazy the weather is here. I’m hoping no more such drastic changes happen now. I along with my many tiny indoor seedlings am eagerly waiting for the spring. I created this blog to share my experience with this storm. During this difficult time, life was still easier for me compared to many others. I salute farmers throughout the world who have to face such unpredictability on the daily basis. I can only imagine the amount of stress they have to take so that we get food on our plates. A big salute to them.