What Happens in January When Your Back is Turned

I spent a week in Michigan freezing my butt off, and another week of general busy-ness.  Then two days ago I finally made the rounds in the back garden--it's amazing what exuberance the rain and whacky weather have created.

Such as... 25 square feet of tightly packed lettuces, 6 different kinds:

Giant leaves of chard just waiting to be thrown into chicken soup:



A six-by-six bed of carrots grown twice as large as they were two weeks ago:

Self-sown larkspur crowd into a corner by the back fence:

And oops, looks like I threw down an awful lot of poppy seeds:

A Supertunia I've had since April 2010 has risen again:

And finally, what a surprise to see the loropetalum 'rubrum' covered in bloom!

What will happen if we get a prolonged sub-freezing spell like last February's? Anyone willing to wager how many days below freezing we'll get between now and March 1?