Hey Fellow Floridians - Year 2

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by kayrobbins

I am going to be doing the same thing. I hope covering the tomatoes will work. I have most of my peppers in 7 gallon pots. I will move some inside but I found that a 5 gallon bucket will fit perfectly on top of the 7 gallon pots and the peppers are still small enough to fit inside. I am still hoping the 27 degree prediction is wrong but better safe than sorry.

Good luck Kay. It's sort of late for a freeze. I need to look at the weather too, I think.

[Merridiel]

Here's a map from US National Weather Service Tampa Bay Florida's Facebook page, in case it helps anyone:

Originally Posted by kayrobbins

I am going to be doing the same thing. I hope covering the tomatoes will work. I have most of my peppers in 7 gallon pots. I will move some inside but I found that a 5 gallon bucket will fit perfectly on top of the 7 gallon pots and the peppers are still small enough to fit inside. I am still hoping the 27 degree prediction is wrong but better safe than sorry.

My tomatoes have gone down to 35 uncovered and been fine. They also survived two nights at 32 covered. But they weren't loaded with fruit then like they are now. I'm the most worried about my bananas. They got hit hard by our two nights at 32, even though I covered them. Now they all have new growth, plus one sent up a pup just last week. Bad timing, little guy.

The forecast for my zip code keeps changing between 35 and 34, so I'm hoping the 27 degree prediction will miss me, too. I'm gonna leave everything covered/inside for Thursday night as well. It's saying 37 for me Thursday night but I don't trust it. It said 41 for tonight and now this, so... I'll play it safe.

[Zone9b]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Larry your lettuce is just beautiful. Are you going to cover it for tonight's freeze warning? You are an excellent gardener. Everything you grow looks perfect and outstanding.

Marsha,
Thanks for your generous comments, but I'm only a hack gardener compared to you and many others here on Tomatoville. Yesterday, I was looking at your list of seeds you had available this year and it boggled my mind. I thought, How on earth does she do it.
I'm not very equipped for covering plants, although I may try to cover somethings. I have quite a bit of small bean plants exposed and lots of tomato plants.
The low here is only reported to be 40 tomorrow morning. However, some of my plants could still be exposed to damaging frost. The wind is predicted to be 7 mph. I don't know if that is high enough to provide any protection. Here it is a month after the last normal frost date. It isn't supposed to be doing this. March seems to be making up for a warmer than normal February.
The low of 40 here is supposed to occur at 8 am. I'm curious if it would be of value to spray exposed plants with the hose an hour or two before the predicted low.

[JaxRmrJmr]

Set mine out this past weekend and looky what we got coming. I put empty buckets over them. We'll see.

[JaxRmrJmr]

Mine made it through with no trouble. Hope that was the result for all of you as well.

[kurt]

We got down to60. 65 at most.I am close to end of state. 10 b.

[Zone9b]

Local TV said 37 in Orlando. I saw 40 here at home but it could have dropped a bit from there. No frost and not a record. The record low of 30 was set in 1932 and the record high of 94 was set in 1921.
Larry

[Barb_FL]

Our low was about 48; it usually occurs around 6-7AM. It's the winds that are the problem here.

I hope Kay and everyone up north faired OK.

[ginger2778]

We didn't even think about it here. Our low was 54. So glad everyone got through it OK.

[efisakov]

That is a good news!

[peebee]

I know I have a tomato problem when my first thought when I saw the news about Florida's pending frost was: Oh no! I hope all their tomatoes will be alright!
Really, now. But so relieved and glad everything was fine for your folks.

[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by peebee

I know I have a tomato problem when my first thought when I saw the news about Florida's pending frost was: Oh no! I hope all their tomatoes will be alright!
Really, now. But so relieved and glad everything was fine for your folks.

and a few days without having to run the A/C always helps.

[49tandc]

Our low was upper 20's for a couple of nights. Highs in the 60's and I had some tomato and pepper seedlings on a shelf in the cattle panel greenhouse (12' X 40') along with plants already in dutch buckets. I was interested in how well the seedlings would do with these temps. The end walls of the greenhouse are open but the plants are covered with shade cloth and plastic. I was really surprised, the seedlings did just fine and no plants were lost. The seedlings will probably go in the buckets next week or so.


49T&C

[maxjohnson]

Sorry if I'm posting too many of these, but it keeps coming.

[Barb_FL]

Never too many pictures. Keep them coming? Pictures of plants too. It really makes me want to grow cherry tomatoes since most of what I grow I give away. What are the orange ones? What are the pointy red ones in the bowl? What are the red ones with the green shoulders?

I recognize the Pink Bumblebee. I am definitely going to grow PB next fall. I'm growing Maglia Rosa now; this is the first time the plant has done well for me too.

Max - Are you in the Miami area?