12/7 UPDATE

We are sadly coming to an end with Gator Grove and it is time to say farewell, but before that we would like to share our final thoughts with you all! 

Our biggest obstacle recently has been the weather here in Gainesville. One night the temperatures dropped to 32 degrees, therefore we went through a slight freeze. The photo above shows the precautions we took prior to the freeze. Cloth was cut and used to cover the bean plants to protect them from the freeze. They seemed to fair alright from the cold, but are now dying since they have reached the end of their life cycle. 

Unfortunately, the basil in the raised bed did not fare as well as the beans during the freeze we had. We believe that due to basil's nature as a warm weather crop, it was not equipped to handle the freeze.   The photograph above shows the basil following the freeze. Many of the leaves have become brown and faded. 

Luckily, the other crops in the raised bed seem to be doing fine despite the freeze. This is especially true for the cilantro which did not exhibit any side effects from the freeze. The strawberry plants are just now starting to exhibit small flowers and buds, so it will be some time until they produce fruit. 

Other crops like the beets and broccoli were left uncovered. These are much hardier plants that like and can with stand the cold temperatures. We noticed that in a way the cold actually helped the broccoli. Prior to the freeze we were experiencing a pest problem, but the freeze seemed to decimate most of the pest problem the broccoli had. 

This photograph above was taken by our teammate Teresa after she picked one of the red onions. As you can see, the red onion is poorly developed and quite small. We believe the main reason for this is due to the drip irrigation system. The onion was planted between two rows of broccoli and perhaps it was not able to receive enough water to grow to larger size. 

This last photo displays the issue we had with the drip irrigation. As you can see here the water seems to be pooling up in between the drip irrigation, but not actually going towards the plants. In the future before planning we believe we should mound up the soil so that the drip irrigation is able to reach the plants.