Cold Snap Question

[hovermother22]

Such good information. Thank you!

[Jonnyhat]

38 tonight here, I wrapped my 2 raised beds to about 3 ft high with movers plastic making impromptu greenhouses... the pots will get put in the shed tonight.

[wildcat62]

Calling for 38 here tonight also. My 65 plants have been planted since 4/21/16 & are caged and looking good. I've been suckering & pulling bottom leaves today. Our farm is on a East facing slope and is sheltered for the most part. Lots of time everyone around us will have frost & we won't. Hoping my luck continues tonight.

[Gardeneer]

Good luck, Wildcat !
38F is nowhere near frost.
I have planted out starting 4/5/16 and have seen quite few night with low in 40, 39, 38F. I have experiences it down to 36F, many times in the past. only freezing the tissues kill tomatoes. That can only happen with temps at 32F for some extended time.
But one should do what he/she feels comfortable with.
Gardeneer

[wildcat62]

Thanks. I should be alright. After tonight the temp is gonna return closer to normal for our area.

[fonseca]

I'm covering my recently planted out tomato and pepper seedlings today. I certainly don't expect to lose any, but based on cold snaps in previous years, a cold night in the low 40s can really slow growth and production compared to covered seedlings. I have too much time already invested not to cover, and since I have less than 100 plants it won't take long.

Maybe it could be avoided if I was better with hardening off practices. I usually leave seedlings in the greenhouse until nightly lows stay above 55 degrees and then plant out.

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by TomNJ

You can still get frost at temperatures above 32°F. Temperature forecasts are taken at 6' above the ground for an average elevation in the forecast area. If there is little or no wind, temperatures at ground level may be a few degrees lower. I have heard of frost at air temperatures of 35°-36°F, although not very common. If the forecast is correct for 38°F you should be okay. We have the same forecast here for Sat and Sun nights, but I am waiting until Monday to plant my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants so as to take no chances. I just can't afford to lose 100 plants the day before leaving on a two week vacation.

TomNJVA

Great point! *Very* important for people to remember this, Tom!

While our thermometers here, and all "official' ones in the area, showed temp low around 40, we had 1/8 of ice on top of water in some (not all) buckets in the garden middle of last August -- and very heavy severe frost on nearly all the tomato plants -- which I had covered after the sun was off them but well before dark, knowing that the sort of phenomenon you mentioned can happen. Didn't completely kill any, but a few days after the event, most of them looked dead, and most were able to produce at best a tiny fraction of what they were on track to produce . . . and that only because we had a relatively last official "first frost".

Unusual, even here, to get that dramatic an effect with warm August ground -- but one should *never* feel that plants are safe to go without protection just because temps aren't forecast to go below 32 F.

And, as above, even with protection they aren't always safe -- you just have to do what you can for them and hope for the best. And reflect, perhaps, that killing frost is better than having a mile wide tornado coming down your road.

We're very thankful that tornados generally don't like our area at all, though there are powerful thunderstorm downblasts that occasionally flatten whole sections of large tree forests, and large hail that . . . well, you know, it's always something.

[Father'sDaughter]

Mine came back in tonight. They've been out since Thursday afternoon, but today we had steady 15 mph wind with gusts in the 20's. Tonight it's dropping into the 30's and I decided they'd been through enough for one day.

[clkeiper]

Frost was fore casted overnight ....we covered everything last night. Even the grapes. We had a roll of 14' x 100' of row cover that got used on those and other scraps of it cut from other rolls. It covers the grapes from top to bottom and is stapled to the posts and around the ends of the rows and we had frost over night. everything had cover even my cut flower patch. Hopefully those are saved for my farmers markets. it is cold out there this morning.

[bigpinks]

Frost wasevident everywhere this morning and 36 degrees.In about 25 minutes with a 2gal sprinkler I rinsed the entire 100 plants.

[seaeagle]

Low temperature here this morning was 42 at 6 AM according to the Weather Underground temperature chart which set a record, 46 was the old record low.But by 9 AM it was 60 degrees, so it was just a spike low here, hopefully similar everywhere else.If so probably little or no harm done to the tomato plants or anything else, squash looked fine too.

I was looking at my plants this morning just checking to see if it was any wind damage from yesterday, and noticed 2 little tomatoes on the Indian Stripe PL.A nice surprise.So it is true that ISPL are kinda early and the bottom truss had 8 blooms on it, so gonna be productive too, hopefully.Thank you Carolyn and I think B-54 from Alabama discovered the PL so thanks to him too.Going from memory so I could be wrong Oh and Donna from down the road and Clyde Burson too

Edit to say thanks to Angelfield for the great seeds,

[jmsieglaff]

Originally Posted by bigpinks

Frost wasevident everywhere this morning and 36 degrees.In about 25 minutes with a 2gal sprinkler I rinsed the entire 100 plants.

Were the tomato plants covered in frost? How do the plants look after their water rinse?

[bigpinks]

Top of plants had frost. I've been driving oak stakes of and on all day. No damage that I can see. The imp thing is to hose the frost off before the sun hits the plants.

[clkeiper]

the grapes are toast. bummer!

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

Good luck, Wildcat !
38F is nowhere near frost.
I have planted out starting 4/5/16 and have seen quite few night with low in 40, 39, 38F. I have experiences it down to 36F, many times in the past. only freezing the tissues kill tomatoes. That can only happen with temps at 32F for some extended time.
But one should do what he/she feels comfortable with.
Gardeneer

This is not true. I have seen frost with lows in the high 30s. It all depends upon dewpoint,wind and elevation.
I am cautious of anything near 40.