Well. The long-awaited (and slightly feared) winter storm finally hit us here in Cape May.

And there was definitely more snow than I expected.

If you’ve been following along on Instagram or Facebook, you know I’ve been hemming and hawing for days about what to do, because this storm was projected to be… complicated.

Not just snow.

Snow, then warmer temperatures, then rain, and then a return to frigid cold. A real choose-your-own-adventure situation, except all the endings involve potentially killing crops.

Right now, our cold-hardy flowers are overwintering out in the field.

These are the tough guys — the ones that actually like winter and reward us with early spring blooms.

On its own, snow is great for them. It acts like a cozy little blanket, insulating plants from extreme cold.

All winter long, these rows are covered with frost cloth to protect them from wind and freezing temperatures. But when snow arrives, it’s often best to remove that cloth and let the snow do the insulating instead.

Here’s where things got tricky.

This storm was expected to dump several inches of snow, followed by warmer temperatures and rain… and then a hard freeze.

If I left the frost cloth on, the heavy snow could weigh it down and smother the plants underneath.

If I took it off, the cloth would get wet, then freeze solid on the ground, making it nearly impossible to recover everything at the right time.

And then there were the ranunculus.

Ranunculus are not nearly as cold-hardy as the rest of the crops, so they absolutely needed to stay covered. But underneath their row cover, I also had insect netting laid directly on top of the plants to keep the rabbits from eating them (because yes, that is a thing).

So:

  • Uncover everything → rabbits eat the ranunculus

  • Leave everything covered → snow weight risks killing them

  • Snow falling overnight → no chance to go out and blow it off with the leaf blower (which is usually my move)

No pressure.

So what did I do?

I uncovered all the rows except the ranunculus.

For those, I added extra support underneath the cover and even ran outdoor lights inside the rows to add a bit of warmth and help melt the snow.

And honestly?

It helped.

The snow was delayed just enough into the early morning that I could get outside and start brushing it off. Then, while it was raining and temperatures were in the 40s, I went back out and recovered everything — because that frigid cold wasn’t going anywhere.

Every year of flower farming teaches you something new.

This year’s lesson?

Next winter, the ranunculus get their own stronger support system and plastic covering instead of cloth. More structure, less stress, and fewer 2 a.m. “what if I made the wrong call?” spirals.

Of course… knowing how farming works, that probably means next winter will be the mildest one yet.

That’s how this always goes, right?

I hope you weathered the storm safely and are staying warm. It’s dangerously cold out there — please take care, my friend.

Until tomorrow.