Yeah…if it froze…? might just get a layer of ice on the top of the bucket. Maybe the key is to have an island on the middle of a lake or river…then that can act as a freeze buffer. Lots of islands up here on the Mississippi…i just need to declare one my own…
33F/18F at 1am…yikes…off to bed. Good luck trees.
Well, I’m off to bed, but with an update. As mentioned earlier, the temps were hovering around 41 from like 9pm until midnight, because we had a light rain and clouds. I’m thinking it may not get that cold after all.
Before calling it a night, I thought I’d better go cover my big gooseberry plant that had a bunch of fruit buds opening on it. This was at about 1:15, so I pulled on my coat, hat and gloves and headed out the door. It was then about 39 up here on the hill. The moon was out, with wispy clouds passing by it, and little wind.
I went to the barn to get some stakes to hold up my covering, and went down the hill to place a sheet and tablecloth over the bush. It took me about 10 minutes to get it done by a spotlight. I was thinking, “this is probably overkill, but I don’t want to take a chance”.
I went back up the hill and looked up to the sky and saw the moon, stars and now, no clouds. The front had clearly pushed through. You could tell it was colder.
I got the temp sensor off my deck and placed it in the strawberry patch to get a more accurate reading there. I also have another sensor down in the barn at ground level.
To my shock, when I walked back into the house (about 2am), it was already 35 in the patch and down the hill. So, in about half an hour it dropped about 5 degrees, and wasn’t stopping there. I said you gotta be kidding me, along with some expletives. I went to take a shower before bed, and just checked them again, and they’re both sitting at 32, with about four more hours of dark left.
This is crazy, May 9th, and our second freeze in three days, but this one could be worse. I dread getting up later and seeing what has happened, it’s really disappointing to say the least. Maybe it’ll find a bottom and not drop much more, but right now I don’t have a good feeling. Forecast low is 27, so we’ll see. As I close it’s about 31.
Forecast now is calling for at least frost again on Monday morn.
We are sitting this morning at -2 C but it looks like it may not have gone past -3C. I haven’t looked yet.
We fully wrapped the Asian pear since it’s buds were showing colour and we’re only able to do one pear. I chose the lucious since it has been the producer so far.
Tried the apricot but it’s a bit too big.
Babies were all soaked and moved inside.
I took all the asparagus tips and they were tasty.
Cut a chunk of the rhubarb, mostly the biggest leaved ones, and then layered the cut leaves over the rest. I figured it was worth a try. They are very sheltered.
Haskap bed was too big to do anything so it’s all about hopping the Siberian genes do their job with those.
It was definitely late frost last night. I am gladed I moved all the pots indoor. Not sure how the peaches and large persimmon
trees are holding up .
33.1F here was the lowest, looks like I will be OK this round…
Did you use the blow torch at all? We may get another frost on Sunday morning. Ugh. I did covered my leafed it out apple grafts with the hair nets.
No… the alarm didn’t go off, not sure why but it might need to be below the temp for a full hour.
@BobC: ouch.
Thanks for sharing this explanation. I think this is what I’m seeing in my garden. With a forecasted low of 35 overnight, I just covered some annual flowers I had just planted and about half of my peppers, but left strawberries, figs, cherries, etc. on their own. I checked the temps several times during the night and it looked like it was really only getting to 35 and thought everything was fine.
But this morning, when I went to pick up buckets and other containers I’d used to cover plants, I noticed that some of the mulch I had pushed around the edges was actually frozen. So now I’ll have to see how the low stuff I didn’t cover looks later today when any effects of frost start to show. I do think that my fruit trees and figs are probably fine since it wasn’t that cold and the wind never died down completely so it was probably just coldest right at the soil line. Maybe the buckets acted as enough of a wind block to let the mulch around them drop those last few degrees?
I think I need to get more sensors to monitor different areas more closely.
Low here last night was 25.6F. Didn’t really feel up to it, but did some hasty covering last night, and got all the tomatoes, peppers, etc. indoors. Usually have those in the ground by now; and it’s a good thing I didn’t this season. Threw some (soggy) straw on low-lying fig growths and crammed the potted ones into the greenhouse and put a couple of heat lamps on. Would have protected some things a little more thoroughly but (of course) it rained all day.
Not much visible damage as of now. Frost was thick, tho.
I use to gather all my potted figs and others in a circle, lay them down with the tops towards the center so that you only have one cover over the whole group. Branches could lay on top of each other. Using moving blankets first than a large tarp over the whole thing.
Same here, at 5:00 am it reached 1C and stayed there for a couple of hours, then started warming…
Got to 35F here. Tonight will tell the tale though. Predicting upper 20’s to lower 30’s. Too many things fruiting for the first time, which would unfortunately be difficult to provide additional warmth to.
Plus flowers, my wife has tons of oriential/asiatic/other lillies which have put on a ton of growth. Many with blooms close to the point of showing color. Sigh…
Thermometer here registered a low of 30 degrees. I went out and looked about and things looked ok. By 9 it has warmed up to 40 degrees.
Only the figs remained outside. My morus nigra, bananas, passionflowers and veggie starts were all brought in.
Our traditional last frost date is still a week in the future. Time will tell how my cherries, asian pear, plum, poncirus and goumi (all in full bloom at this time) fare in all this.
Scott
Yup… another one to get thru. Dropped to 29F here between obs but seemed to sit right around 32F most of the night with a tad bit of wind hopefully keeping things stirred up a little. Warming up quick.
Didn’t get as bad as I had feared. It actually hit the forecast of 28, so we prob will be okay, but I haven’t taken off the tarps yet to see.
I uncovered the one tomato I had in the ground…melt city! Oh man… Glad i restarted a bunch of them a few weeks back.
Sweet cherries have a little brown around some of the flower edges. I haven’t cut anything open to check…i’ve got to get thru Mon/Tues morning still so i’ll just wait.
