I didn’t see it coming- nor did meteorologists who were very late in issuing a frost warning. It wasn’t there yesterday morning and by the time I checked weather that evening I’d been working for about 12 hours.
The last two days I’d planted a lot of pepper and tomato plants- I start them very early because it means so much more bang for the buck- I’m already harvesting my first tomatoes.
After ranting profanely for a couple of minutes I got to work. I covered my peppers with landscape fabric and unstaked my tomatoes, laying them on the ground and covering them with dry hay. The hay worked the landscape fabric did not. It wasn’t even a very hard frost, maybe got down to 30 but the fabric offered inadequate damage- half were killed.
I could have protected them with hay, but even though I’ve been doing this stuff for about 56 years I’m still essentially an idiot. Not so stupid not to have some back-up pepper plants though. Can’t buy the varieties I want to grow as starts.
Oh we all saw it coming. Not sure where you live, but the freeze watches were up in most areas of interior New england Tue night/Wed morning. There’s protocol for when the products get issued so you won’t see freeze watches or warnings up days in advance. Your best bet is to read the NWS area forecast discussions (AFDs) or click on your point-click forecast to get an idea of how close to freezing it will be.
But yeah, this freeze was modeled well in advance. Far northern New England actually had no products issued because they’re technically not out of the average last freeze window to begin with.
There’s a chance I forgot to check the weather that morning, but it was not anticipated in S. NY (I’m an hours drive from Manhattan which is south of me). I certainly had checked the long term forecast the day before and do so at some point every day, so it wasn’t anticipated by Weather Underground (the Weather Channel) the day before and they get their info from the same government source you do.
Yeah you’re quite a bit further south. It’s tough. This was near record cold for the lower lying areas so it’s been awhile since we’ve seen anything this cold this late in the season.
Has to be one of the worst fruit growing years for most of the nation. Here we had a sudden below zero freeze in Dec., which killed young peach trees, and killed fruit buds. Then had multiple late freezes, which killed peach fruit buds from the lower Midwest through parts of the South. Parts of the Northeast lost early blooming stone fruits and now frost sensitive crops like tomatoes and peppers.
We had to wait to plant our tomatoes to the latest date we’ve ever done it (May 2nd).
We very little rain at the orchard in April and May. Then last Sunday, we got 3.25" of rain extremely quickly. It washed large amounts of soil and clogged 3 culverts in the orchard with muck.
I thought I was the only one who occasionally rants profanely about the weather.
I’m sorry to read this we understand frustration with weather here at times. Olpea said it well already. In my area Alan one trick we use is to cut the bottom off 1 gallon milk jugs or use pickle jars to cover plants at night quickly. Then in the day we uncover them before the sun rises and cooks them. It can freeze outside but in that make shift cloche they are perfectly safe Winter greens indoors - cloches . In my childhood we grew all tomatoes in this way from April 15th to May 15th covering them every night.
32° was the National Weather Service’s predicted low when I went to bed, but our outdoor thermometer already read 32.5, but I did not expect 24.6 as our low.
I have lots of plant pots of many sizes, but I assumed the fabric would work. A couple of peppers I covered with 1 gallon pots were fine. I don’t buy any beverages besides a bit of milk in cartons, mostly for my coffee (besides beer and wine). With stapled down fabric you don’t have to worry about wind blowing away protection. I have to put rocks on pots which takes more time.
I don’t know why the fabric failed so abysmally this time- memory suggests it has worked in similar situations in the past, but it may be that the mulch I had by the peppers stopped some of the heat from the ground. I usually do my mulching later in the season, but it has been pretty dry.
We were forecasted to have a low of 29, but it only got down to 33 here. I am blessed to be in a higher elevation and thermal currents help keep frost at bay. The lower valleys went low, with a low of 24 at my job.
We had 2 freezes last week of May last year. It was such a hard growing season last year here because April was too warm for the cold season veggies and then summer crops/trees/bushes failed because of late freezes.
Yeah, my wife took a different view of my huge pile of misc nursery pots. She was after me to get rid of them all just a couple of weeks ago, now they’ve saved our peppers and most of our tomato crop. We ran a heater in the high tunnel, where tomatoes are planted, but it went out sometime between 2and 4 am. Was 28 on there when my wife went to check at 4 am. Darn thing was keeping it 40 in there until it went out. We did a mix of pots and Remay on some of the tender stuff, too, though the bigger tomatoes were left on their wire trellises with the radiant heat aiming at them. We’ll see how bad it was later, but yeah the pot cloches work very well
Wunderground stated a low of 29 here but it’s been running 2-3 degrees lower than than them all week so I put blankets over the vegetables, glad I did.
We’ve been catching a good inversion most of the cold nights this spring. It’s been 5-6 degrees warmer here than at a friend’s farm in the CT river valley. He’s in a great sheltered spot that doesn’t seem easily affected by cold air pooling. No such luck last night though it seems. I’ll ask him later what his hi/lo said. I’m guessing about like us though. I logged 26.6 (might have already said that). Visible frost damage on woodies seems limited to mulberries, grapes, and kiwis which all had a couple inches of tender growth pushed.
We were originally supposed to get down to 35. Yesterday that changed to 33. Went to work at 4:30 am, car thermometer was 32 in the driveway by the house. The back field was probably lower. A few wunderground.com stations nearby showed 29. Plums and peaches fruitlets are about 1/2" right now. I’m mostly worried about my grapes. They got zapped a few weeks ago and just started sending out good secondary growth. Got my raised beds ready, but haven’t thrown the tomatoes and peppers in yet.
I was taught by my grandfather, a lifelong farmer who was born in 1920, to not put plants in ground until Memorial Day. My neighbor convinced me to plant on Mother’s Day and got hit by frost a few years into doing that, so this year I was waiting until Memorial Day.
Last Fall I bought one of those 4 tier mini greenhouses from Walmart when it was on Clearance for $7.50. I started dozens of plants in there. These survived several frosts since April 1 but this morning most of my plants were dead. I lost half of my tomatoes, all of my peppers, nearly all of my eggplant, and all but a few sprouts of basil. These losses hurt because most, including the basil, were varieties not sold at the garden centers. Some of my cukes and squash survived, probably because they were set in a deep Rubbermaid bin. I did not expect the mini greenhouse plants to get zapped like this. I protected my potted figs and they look fine.
Tonight’s forecast low is 40. That temperature often coincides with a light frost around here.
I heard about Memorial Day planting here in CO. I guess the challenge would be the southern folk here would be missing a large part of their season if they did that. Many places in the south can plant in March from my understanding. Of course perennials come out at their own time so planting those later will not help with way. I have waited until Memorial Day to plant annuals and I will see people with a higher risk tolerance getting fruit a month ahead of me in local gardening Facebook groups.
