Re: Freeze due - HELP!
- To: s*@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
- Subject: Re: [SG] Freeze due - HELP!
- From: J* A* B*
- Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 22:09:00 -0500
At 07:20 4/16/2001 EDT, you wrote:
>Louise,
>I put empty flower containers over them if I feel the temp is going down
>that much. It's kind of a pain but it prevents frost burn
>
>Dave Hardt
>P.O. Box 746
>3 B.A. Drive
>Carver, MA 02330
Being in a real Cold Zone gardening area where we have had hard frost
warnings as late as the second week of June after having had a month
of wonderful warm growing weather, I have collected over the years a
large pile of old bed sheets and 3 to 4 foot stakes.
When there is a frost warning I jam the stakes into the ground to whatever
height I need them and then drape the cloth over the stakes and
secure the sheet with bricks or stones. I have also saved
paper bags for the individual plants as well as 2 litre milk cartons (these
fold up nicely and stored for future use) which I pop over the
plants and put a small rock on to hold them in place. It is a lot of
work, but considering that I have such a short growing season I cannot
afford to take the chance that the plants will get frosted because they
just may not recover quickly enough to show anything that year.
I would not use anything plastic as it conducts the cold which can
be worse than if they where exposed to the cold. The other thing
that I have seen people do is place large jugs and pails of water
throughout the plants and this seems to radiate enough warmth around
the plants to keep them from freezing. I have done this in conjunction
with covering them with the sheeting material.
I have had to do this so many times over the years in my garden
that I now have a plan of attack and a system which works and gets
the job done in about 4 hours. The most important thing to do is don't
panic... just be very focused and try your best. If you have nothing
else to use, make newspaper tents and secure them with rocks.
If the warning is for a number of days, everything stays on until
the warning is ended.
Hope this helps
Jennifer Bishop
Zone 3
Winnipeg MB CA (where we had a light dusting of snow last night and it is
-10 Cel this morning YUCK!)
