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End of season cold front rescue!

Cy Cobb

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Location: Illinois, Zone 6b

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posted 3 years ago

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I know with 100+ degree temps, we're far from winter, but I'm curious to know if anyone has tips to protect your garden from cold snaps as winter approaches. I myself am pushing the envelope with a second crop of sweet corn & watermelon plants to hopefully produce before the first frost hits. Would draping some clear plastic over the plants & tucking it down work like a green house to insulate against cold snaps as winter approaches?

Dirty hands + a sweaty handkerchief = hope for the future.

John C Daley

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Location: Bendigo , Australia

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posted 3 years ago

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Run a large fan across the crop, the grape growers use it to prevent to frost settling.

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Casie Becker

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Location: Just northwest of Austin, TX

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posted 3 years ago

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Yes to the plastic, but it is very important that you open the ends on sunny days or it will overheat and that you have a frame to keep it from pressing against the plants during freezing weather or they will still freeze. Plastic also doesn't tend to be very good insulation. Around here during most short freezes people cover with blankets and quilts until it warms up again but in more than 40 years experience, the snowmageddeon conditions of a couple years ago only happen about once a decade and that was only the second time in my life it lasted more than a few days. In other words, I have a very limited understanding of true winter conditions.

Editing to add: I am impressed that you are planning for this now. It's much harder to prepare at the last minute as the front is rolling in.

Matt McSpadden

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Location: Central Maine (Zone 5a)

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posted 3 years ago

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Hi Cy,
Plastic will probably work, but you also want to keep an eye on the humidity related to condensation. Depending on the plant and depending on you area and depending on how cold, you might just need to keep the plant warm enough. In other cases you need to keep the condensation off the plant to avoid it freezing into frost. Use plastic or burlap or a heat source depending on the need.

Also, as was mentioned, you need to be careful during the day when the sun comes back out. It could be 10F outside of a greenhouse and easily hit 80 or 90 inside during the day.

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Cy Cobb

pollinator

Posts: 375

Location: Illinois, Zone 6b

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posted 3 years ago

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Thanks folks! I've never had to worry about coverings before since my garden is usually done by then & so am I. However, I'm trying something new to me by maximizing my food production out of this plot. I think it'll be nice to have fresh sweet corn & watermelons right before winter. My plantings are timed just right, but I don't yet know how the cooling temps will affect hot weather produce like this. I suppose we'll see!

Dirty hands + a sweaty handkerchief = hope for the future.

Robert Ray

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Location: Cascades of Oregon

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posted 3 years ago

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Arrgh, yesterday 94 during the day dropped to 28 overnight and now back up to 90 this afternoon. Greenhouse should be okay but I'll assess the garden tonight.

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

Joylynn Hardesty

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Location: Due to winter mortality, I stubbornly state, zone 7a Tennessee

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posted 3 years ago

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Noooo!!!

'What we do now echoes in eternity.' Marcus Aurelius
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Robert Ray

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Location: Cascades of Oregon

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posted 3 years ago

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Oh well, I have a hundred gherkin size cukes to pickle.

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

Cy Cobb

pollinator

Posts: 375

Location: Illinois, Zone 6b

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posted 3 years ago

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Well, at least you're optimistic about it, lol.

I ended up pulling my corn since it was done early (too far gone for eating really), and planted more dry beans throughout for the Nitrogen fixation for next year. Hopefully the extra sunlight will help my watermelons finish strong before our nighttime temps drop even more.

Dirty hands + a sweaty handkerchief = hope for the future.

Mike Turner

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Posts: 508

Location: Upstate SC

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posted 3 years ago

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I cover frost sensitive plants with frost cloth (Agribon AG-50) that provides up to 8 degrees F of protection against freezing temperatures, so it protects against overnight lows down to 24 degrees F. If it gets below that, I can double or triple up on the layers for even more protection (to be removed after the frost danger is past so the plants can get daylight). Outdoors, I mainly use it to protect the fall potato and tomato crop through the first several weeks of frost. In my unheated hoop houses, I use them to cover frost sensitive plants like peppers, tomatoes, and pineapple whenever outside temperatures get low enough (21 degrees F) to threaten a frost inside giving me zone 10 conditions in my zone 7 growing area.

craig howard

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Location: zone 5-5

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posted 3 years ago

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I'm trying to get a little more red on my peppers.
I've been covering with cloth: dividing curtains from local nursing home, old sleeping bags and blankets,
got a few 3ft. poles put in around the edge to support them.
Have gallon water jugs in there to buffer the cold and putting some candles in the "boxes" with them.
Good use for my wax collection.
My garden looks like it has 3ft glowing boxes in it.

Joylynn Hardesty

master pollinator

Posts: 5261

Location: Due to winter mortality, I stubbornly state, zone 7a Tennessee

2228

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