Frosty Florida Round 2

Here we go again!  Saturday and Sunday night are supposed to be in the low 30's, way too chilly for any fruit bearing plants.  The last time we had "near-freezing" temps and only got into the low 40s. Now, they're calling for a "hard frost", complete with red flag warnings from the National Weather Service and all.

So we brought out the sheets, clamps, clips and Christmas lights. 

 It was awfully windy getting this together so we clamped it down tight any way we could. These are some type of clamp from our garage but we used office binder clips as well. The binder clips are an amazing way to keep things clamped down and they're pretty inexpensive compared to other garden specific clamp products.

Don't underestimate the capabilities of a good old fashion knot!

 We kept the Christmas lights out just for this exact purpose. We have both strings and nets of lights but decided on only using the nets. Between the plants and wind, the nets got tangled a little bit the last time we tried this. I'd imaging that weaving a string of lights trough the plants and then trying to get it back off would be just too much work.

The plants grew quite a bit from the last frost so the sheets didn't quite reach this time around. If I had planned better, I would have gotten some cheap used sheets at a thrift store to dedicate just to the garden.

Sorry lettuce the sheet just does not reach!  I didn't dare to pull too tightly. I kept hearing little cracks and snaps as we were working so I know some stems couldn't stand the pressure as we tugged and clipped.

 It sure is a sight at night!  And we didn't neglect Ruby either, we wrapped her up for the freeze as well.

Frost Damage Report

Passion Flower Frost Damage

On Monday the low was 49 degrees, Tuesday's low was 38 and on Wednesday the low was 35 degrees. Not too scary for a Northern Girl. I was very close to not really covering anything at all, but boy, am I glad that I did! Look at the poor passion flower! This is the first frost that the passion flower has felt and it did suffer some damage but it was minimal overall and the vine will have no trouble bouncing back as it warms up this weekend. We didn't cover it all, so I'm pretty pleased with how it held up.

Marigold Frost Damage

 I thought for sure that the marigolds would hold their own against the frosty temperatures, but alas, they show signs of serious freezer burn. All of the green foliage has turned a dark green/black color and the flower heads are all shriveled and wilted. I'd be very surprised if these bounce back, since they took a pretty heavy hit. Oddly, all of the marigolds have the same frost damage whether they were covered or not.

Marigold Frost Damage

 Tomato Frost Damage

 The tomatoes held up better than I expected. I mean, we're growing tomatoes in JANUARY, for crying out loud!  The parts that were exposed to the air had the typical frost damage with wilted leaves and stems. But the hubby did a great job of covering mostly everything so there are only a few sections affected.  I took a peek under the sheets and the main parts of the plants all look great. I think the Christmas lights helped out, I really do. Some parts of the tomato plants that were covered with only the sheet had some damage,  but every section covered by both lights and sheets was perfect!  Yeah! Christmas lights saved the day!

Ruby survived the frost just fine but the green grass did not.

The Frost Update

The wind blew off the covers

Sheets askew

It's 37 degrees as I type this. It got down to 39 degrees last night. Chilly! This morning it smelled like snow, that crisp, cold, clean smell right before it starts coming down. But as you may know, 39 degrees is way too warm for any of the white stuff and we lucked out with no real surface frost on any if the plants. We got a bit of wind which pushed the sheets around and we woke up to the mess above.

Ruby immediately ran back in the house, she doesn't like the cold

Batten down the hatches!

We busted out the big guns monster paper clips and made adjustments to the make shift covers. Maybe they'll stay on a little longer tonight. So, here in zone 9a we're covering green tomatoes and pepper plants overnight while in zone 6a it is 4 degrees. You read that right, FOUR DEGREES!

Putting the paper clips to work.

Sorry marigolds, you're on your own.

Frosty Florida

Oh No! There are rumors of a frost heading this way. Never before have I had to contemplate frost proofing a fully fruiting vegetable garden. Maybe Dad would cover a few young starts if there was a late frost in New York, but not a garden in full bloom. I'm thankful that the raised beds aren't that big otherwise I'd just have to call it quits right now, practice a little survival of the fittest.  Two weeks ago we broke a heat record with 85 degrees. Tonight, hard frost. What a roller coaster!

Wanna see how 5 sheets, 2 clamps and 5 sets of net Christmas lights will keep my tomatoes frost free?

Let's take a look:

All small pots go into the larger raised bed then draped with lights

More little pots go into the other raised bed and more lights are draped over everything

Ohhh! So Pretty!

Throw some sheets on top to keep the little bit of heat in.

All set for the frost!