I totally understand you. Last year the very late heavy frost hit my crops twice in the mid of April. I lost almost all my crops. Then I found two kinds of fruits are pretty safe for my area: jujubes and muscadines. I added five muscadine vines this year and try to grow table grapes. I already have six jujube plants and just wait for growing big.
Don’t forget to grow some melons.
Now I like growing multi- grafting stone fruit trees. There might be one or several varieties can survive the frost.
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Kevin,
I’ve been wondering how things are going further south. 14F sounds like a curve ball (to the face) for anything in bloom.
Don’t completely lose hope yet. I’ve only had one year here where the weather totally erased every tree crop (2007). That was when a freeze of 18F occurred on two consecutive days after lots of weeks of warm weather, as I recall 4-7, and 4-8 were the blasted low days.
I’ve had lots of years since then that I gave up all hope for peaches (and some years being pretty lean) but I’ve found the weather folks either missed the lows, or the trees bloomed after the cold spell.
I suspect your peaches will produce something (not so much for J. plums). Hang in there. Don’t write it off yet. I suspect the peach tree nymph will grant you something.
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Here we go again…
I am happy to report that at least in northern VA I don’t have anything about to bloom. We are anticipating temps as low as 14 next week. I hope that keeps everything dormant for at least a few more weeks. After that we will basically be in the clear.
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Can you cover some of the branches with sheets of some type? That may help , maybe not. Just a thought. I am sorry you will probably lose your stone fruit this year as well. yes, apples is looking better every year.
Mark I truly appreciate that hopeful and inspiring post, and I suspect there are lots of others like me and @sophia who are worried and found some solace in your words of experience. In fact, I’d say with the exception of our zone 8+ friends, few of sleep perfectly this time of year. And I know you are right…I just needed to hear it. In fact, I walked through my orchard today and looked more carefully and there are some trees with some buds that still look pretty tight so certainly there is hope. Time will tell.
Good luck to you and everyone else in getting through early spring without too much damage.
@MikeC Thanks for your thoughts and suggestion. Unfortunately, while covering trees might help with a light frost, in a hard freeze situation like this, unless I had some kind of heat source that covering could keep from escaping, it just wouldn’t help. I’ve learned this from PERSONAL experience I’m afraid. But again, thanks for the concern and the idea. Hopefully your trees are still completely or almost completely dormant.
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I’m crossing my fingers no more of my swollen buds pop between now and next week! We have 19 and low twenties predicted.
I swear our Februaries have gotten warmer 
Our weatherman said next week will see temps lower than any we had in February here in NC.
seeing posts of you folks worryng about your tree fruit makes me appreciate my cane and bush fruits even more. never not have a crop with them. not much weird weather affects them. currants, strawberries, blueberries and raspberries always give good, reliable crops. hopefully the bush cherries and american plums i put in are just as reliable.
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What is KDL? My plum and nectarines have baby fruit already! (Zone 8b) will this save the fruit? We are supposed to get 2 nights at 26 degrees next week. Thank you.
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My Redhaven peach tree is in full bloom. Supposed to get 20F on Tues. Even if I controlled the temperature via light bulbs and blankets, what are the chances the fruit will be properly pollinated with no bees buzzing about this time of year? Does the wind spread pollen enough to solve this problem?
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That’s seems like a manageable sized tree. I would try to hand pollinate and protect it from the frost. Being young, you probably don’t want it to over set anyway but it would be nice to get a few handfuls.
I’m sure there are many links, and many opinions on best practices for hand pollinating, but these are the first three to show up in my search:
http://mytinyplot.com/categories-2/fruit-orchard/hand-pollinating-peaches/
http://waywardspark.com/hand-pollinating-the-peach-tree-with-dog-hair/
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Almost all peach cultivars are self-fruitful and don’t require pollinators. There have been studies where researchers have caged flowers to prevent any insects from pollinating and the peach trees still set an adequate crop.
20F is going to wipe out all blooms fully open without supplemental heat. It will kill various amounts of closed blooms, depending on their stage.
Sheet and lights can save a significant portion of the blooms. But the sheet will knock of many of the flowers by itself. If it’s very windy, the sheet will whip lots of blooms off, if the sheet stays on.
If it’s calm, the sheet and lights could do a lot of good. If the lights put out quite a bit of heat, it may do some good to use the Christmas lights by itself.
If you have an electric space heater, you might consider putting that under the tree. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it, but space heaters put out quite a bit of heat.
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I do it every yr on my persimmon. It’s about 8ft tall and wide so it takes a big cover. A space heater set at 750 watts will save a big tree if well covered.
I seldom fail at protecting bloom when using a cover and heat source. Light bulbs under the small trees and more heat under bigger trees.
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I did the sheet thing–actually a light blanket-- and it destroyed lots more blooms than it helped, yep! Turns out those peaches were very bud hardy anyway, lol. I’m definitely checking the wind this year.
We’re supposed to get two consecutive nights of 21-22 2 of my peaches did that fine last year, but the nights weren’t consecutive.
(Bruce JxA plum came through that very nicely, BTW.)
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I’ve covered lots of things with delicate blossoms like apricot. I’ve never thought that the cover did much damage. A few percent, ya maybe. But a freeze can take 100%.
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It was really windy overnight and I hadn’t thought to check that part of the forecast. It came unsecured and beat them silly, lol. I’m used to shorter plants 
In the late winter/early spring of 2017, with forecast saying temp would be in single digit/teen after buds started to push, I covered my stone fruit trees with tarp with light bulbs inside. We thought we secured the tarps with ropes well. The wind was so strong overnight. It whipped the tarps and ropes pretty bad. We ended up causing more damage to the trees than if we had just left them alone. The result were the same. Stone fruit buds were almostly fried anyway.
Watch out for forecast of wind gust.
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What type of sheet do you guys use?
Mine was a flannel material, or a faux-flannel light fleece.
Hey, do you have to cover all the way to the ground? It would be so much easier if the answer is no.
No you don’t but it has to be closed in. So going to the ground is usually just as easy as tying to the trunk. It takes a much bigger tarp than one might think.
You’ve got to have it set up to hold in the warm air and a big enough heat source to warm adequately.
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