Are you ready? Have you gotten all your plants wrapped or brought inside? Did you harvest all your veggies? It's a little bit earlier than our avg. first freeze date of November 15th, but it's coming tonight!
First Freeze of the Season Coming for North Texas!
Feels like it, i mean it's cold today enough to imagine a freeze.
Here in Houston we are always about 10* warmer than you guys but we are getting 38* and 36* early Wed and Thur AM. so I have a coleus farm on my stair landing (big window). 40* is as low as they can go.
I'm trying to figure out what i need to bring in, what I can just water and group together and maybe use frost cloth. I started on Sat. b/c it was allegedly going to freeze then. So it's hard to know whether the forecasters will be right this time. Also, since I live kinda in the middle of Dallas, bad weather takes longer to reach us. Seems like those of you in Ft. Worth and parts west get hit with weather more frequently.
Crinums should be ok. Right?
Hope others will read this and let me know if I should go out and round up some more 4 o'clock seeds. I grabbed one the other day but dropped it and it disappeared into a pile of leaves. Oops.
Sittin still in Eastern Houston, air was heavy and hot, full sun. Finished my lunch and walked outside to overcast skies, a brisk wind and a definite promise of more than a chilly nite when dusk arrives. Jackets are coming out
Crinims will freeze tops off and go dormant even in south Tx. If you take them in house for the cold, you could possibly have a Christmas bloom.
If your crinums are in the ground, the tops will freeze and die back, but will sprout again in the spring. I bring in my potted plants. I mulch the plants that don't really like freezing temps like my Esperanza. Everything else is left to its own devices, but I have a lot of natives that don't need too much protection.
I have two questions, one is that I accidentally have potatoes growing, apparently I did a lousy job of picking this spring. I currently have some grass clippings and leaves piled around. I know it isn't normal, but was wondering if anyone had tried growing them in the fall/winter.
The second is for you garlic growers. My first crop ever is growing well and I don't know what to do? Does it need protection? Mulch?
I moved everything from the RU to the south side of the house for the next couple nights, along with a couple things I'm not ready to see fade. I covered my basil because I am busy making green tomato marmalade and relish. Also hoping to save my peppers for a few more weeks.
We are supposed to be 35-37 tonight and 33 tomorrow, then warmer.
Well, oops. Shoulda woulda coulda read your answers sooner. 2 crinums are in the ground but 3 others are in pots. After watering everything and bringing stuff in and grouping others (including 1 of the potted crinums) by the back door, and going to the store, etc., etc., I really don't want to go back outside and hunt down the 2 in pots by the far side of my yard. The collection of potted plants that I grouped by the back door are in prime position for me to put a frost cloth over them if need be. Well, maybe I'll go outside and rescue those 2. There's a ton of mulch over them in their pots. But, oh rats.
Joy, since our ground never freezes, I think of you cover the leaves so they wont get bitten for these two days, you should be able to keep growing. However, I dont know how much bigger they will get if the temps are too low. Maybe if the bed they are in gets plenty of sun, they will continue to grow. The potatoes you have already wont freeze though.
Idaho grows potatoes even in the snow- with sprinklers running as well. - your tops may freeze back, pile leaves n pine needles helps cover from frost touch. Sometimes plants are just as sensitive to daylite length as they are to freezes for growing well.
Joy, your garlic needs no protection, it is very hardy.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Our temperatures went down to 30 but fortunately nothing got nipped, that is for plants in the ground.
Of course I have I have all the potted tender plants either covered with tarps or in the garage.
I hate having to do it, it is a very big job and an even bigger pain, but I love them too much and can't stand to lose them.
Josephine, were you out running around bringing in your plants? I remember the conversation we had about that a couple of years ago.
Yes I was, I have said many times that I need to cut back on the number of plants I winter over, but I just can't seem to manage it.
There are just too many plants that I can't let die. Oh well, the saga continues.
Yea! The 2 crinums that were in pots but left outside during freeze are just fine. Didn't look at the 2 in the ground but not worried.