Freeze coming... what to do? Part Two

With sympathy to those of us on dial up, as you requested. A new thread! If you are just joining us, we started here. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/923532/#new

In the last thread, we covered how to protect your plants in winter. Beautiful Brug blooms, egg trees and oh so much more. Who knows where we will end up! LOL


It went to 38 degrees here last night. My weather source had predicted high 30's so I'll give them a "gold star" for that one. Anyone remember the teachers doing that? Different colored stars for varied levels of success?

Oh Jeez! I do remember those stars. It didn't quite hit 42º here. It's still 42.3º out there. My Brug still has some buds and a few ragged blooms. It's too cold to enjoy her fragrance outside.

LOL ~ glad someone else remembers them. And if I recall, they were a lick & stick star. Yuck!

thanks for the new link. I remember gold statrs. I don't remember getting all that many :)

It got down to 38 here so, yep, the weather man gets a gold star here too. I had the heat on in the GH. It seems to run about 4 degrees cooler at night than the actual air temp. It was a toasty 53 all night in there.

My budding brug is still going full guns. Her buds of various sizes are getting bigger every day and are so green. The poinsettias are turning color and the egg tree is blooming and has a few small eggs. My roses are blooming as well as the geraniums, butterfly bushes, lantana, clematis, calibrochoas, surfinia, petunia, boganvillea and begonias. The mum flowers have faded but are putting on new growth, so I will cut them back. At least I still have color in the yard with all the bare trees.

Wow, pod, I remember those gold stars too. It's funny because I started cooking this morning, getting ready for tomorrow, and I was thinking of "used to be" things, like gold stars. As I started baking pies, I remembered helping my grandmother and we beat the egg whites with a hand held rotary beater that you turned a handle on the side of it to make the beaters turn. Thank goodness for electric mixers! All of that stuff "in the good old days" wasn't all good, but oh, what I wouldn't give for one more day with my grandmother!

Hope all of you have a happy and safe Thanksgiving and that none of your pies stick to your thighs!

Crow

I remember hand held rotary beaters. Now that is going back. I've been cooking this morning too. Also took out all my plants to get fresh air and sunshine. I discovered my Hot Lips has bloomed. It was a gift from a fellow dger in Oct. She spends the nights under a box for protection.

It looks like we will get a few nights break from really cold temps. Supposed to get rain though.

Happy baking everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. Jeanne

"none of your pies stick to your thighs!" LOL Never heard that before!

Believe it or not, I bought a really good hand held beater at an antiques store, paid good money for it. I used it once on a Lemon Bundt cake. It was good as always... no better, no worse.

Counting my blessings and wishing all a nice Thanksgiving.

I bought my hand held beater from Garrett Wade, a catalog store and paid good money for it. I bought it shortly after I started to hand feed my first hand fed heifer. The beaters you can purchase at a grocery store fell apart after a few uses. The hand held beater is perfect for mixing milk replacer powder. An electric mixer was too powerful and a whisk was hard on the old shoulder.

floating row cover video--personally I just throw the cloth over it and anchor with rocks. of course, we only need it for a few hours as opposed to who knows how long in Maine
=)
http://www.growingwisdom.com/index.aspx?pid=17&sid=1&cid=372

Have we already covered running out in your PJs after you're ready for bed and just listened to the news to haul stuff in and/or cover it?!? LOL

Been there ~ done that! LOL. Not tonight although the way the wind is whipping around I will probably do one last bedtime tuck in.

Mid 30's tonight here.

How about where y'all are?

Same here. This afternoon I took cuttings from a lot of my tropicals and shoved them into the biggest pots in my little greenhouse. Rion 6X8 that we assembled this summer. Covered some things I know will burn easily. Most everything is root hardy so I'm not that worried. Love having the opportunity (gh) to perhaps root some things to share. 8a is a terrible place to be bitten by the tropical bug.

Christi

Oh Christi ~ no! Zone 8a is an excellent place to have the tropical bug. Just think of those in 7b and colder... It could always be worse. 8 )

That's true, pod. If you could have seen my garden only a couple of weeks ago....well, you would have believed you were in a tropical jungle. Randy is responsible. hahahaha
Have had the privilege of visiting his garden in person. Oh my gosh! Pictures don't do it justice. He truly has a magic touch. Go to his "home page" and look at the pictures. hhhmmmmhhhum.

We're supposed to be in the upper 30s tonight, with winds 10-20 mph.

we're supposed to be 35 tonight but I bet we go lower. I have everybody either in the GH or workshop or covered up. The greenhouse is a life saver and plant saver for sure. At least everything got a good soaking from two days of rain.

Tues we are supposed to be back in the 70's with lows in the 50's. And so it goes.......

Supposedly 40 here--it seldom freezes here if its windy (of course the wind whips all the moisture out of the plants so I guess sometimes its six of one half dozen of the other). Yep, this is typical winter weather. In the mid 70's Tuesday with low 60's early Wed am. I think we are actually supposed to get a little colder tomorrow night. Often the lowest temps are around the full moon in winter (at least here). Maybe near mid-month? I have moon phase on IE google start up page. Both browsers here (IE handles video's much better).

Tomorrow night is supposed to be a one in a hundred night for viewing the stars and moon.

Heard about that--Venus, the moon, and is it Jupiter? Somebody sent me a link to an article yesterday but can't find it now.

Not too shabby right now.

well if the skies are clear I will take a look at the stars. We have an outdoor fireplace so I'll just light it and look at the planets.

Yes, it's supposed to be even colder here tomorrow night.

Mid 30s it was this am. The lowest it got was 36.2. My weather prognosticator deserves another gold star.

Tonight, it will take a large outdoor fireplace for me to stay warm, maybe a bonfire. Lower thirties predicted. This time, I hope they're wrong! Grrrrr...

I hauled eveything in last night but the cloud cover stuck around and the lowest it got was 45. Oh well, it is suppose to freeze tonight so now eveything is already inside!

It's a little colder up here in Dike..last night 35, tonight predicted 32 and right now it's a mere 49 degrees with a wind making it seem so cold. It's supposed to warm up to 65-high tomorrow. DH says no fire if the wind doesn't die down because the smoke will blow back into the chimney. WHAT....I say??

Yes, last night Venus and the moon crossed Jupiter. It was an exceptional night for star gazing. I woke several times in the night and couldn't help but look out the window to admire the stars.

they were way off here--predicted 41 and it was 51 when I was FORCED to wake up at 5:30 (yuk--an ungodly hour to have to wake up--lol); that was weather underground, weather channel on cable, and local channels. Although its pretty nippy out there now, if the wind doesn't stop blowing so hard I doubt it will freeze. I've seldom if ever seen it freeze here in 20 years unless it was clear skies and dead calm winds.They are predicting 36. They usually exagerate the first freeze down here (its predicted about 3 times prior to the date it actually does freeze). Its the last one they are usually way wrong about (it freezes when they say its going to be warmer).

It never warmed up here today. It was cold and windy. It's 41 right now and the GH is 38. I'll be lighting the heater in there early tonight. Last nights low was 38 and high today was 51. I didn't get to take my grandbaby for a walk, so we went to Wal Mart instead. She's 10 months old and just wants to be busy, doesn't matter what.

I just stepped out and looked at the moon. What a sight. It's too cold even for my fireplace to keep up with the wind we have. Ah, but tomorrow we will have the blessed 60's and lows of 50. A one or two day reprieve.

wow, it's 38 out already. It's going to be a long night for the plants in the ground and in pots outside. I just lit the heater in the GH. Just keep thinking about tomorrow.

Same here...just turned on the heater here as well. They have down 38 for a low but since it is already 38 here I am thinking tonight will finally be our first hard frost.

it's 32 at the airport but 37 out here. The gh is up to 44 now after starting out at 34 an hour ago. I think we will be below 32 tonight. I know all the plants in the gh, workshop and front porch covered will be fine. This the first time I've had to leave any plants out in the open because of their size. There are three. One canna, two butterfly bushes. I don't care if I lose top growth but I don't want the roots to freeze. They have been watered good so I'm thinking the roots will be okay. I also put a gallon jug of water under the sheets with them. A dger here says that helps because as long as the water doesn't freeze it will release heat. It would take a lot to freeze a gal. of water.

I may put them in the wheelbarrow tomorrow and move them to the front porch area for the next cold snap later in the week.

thanks for the heads up about Palestine--I have a good friend up there and will have to give him a call and tell him to go throw a sheet over some things. He seldom pays attention to things like the weather--lol
=)

It's 33.4ºF under the oak where the sensor is located. About 2 degrees cooler out in the open. It may be colder than the predicted 31ºF. It's 45ºF in the small greenhouse heated by an electric heater. The larger greenhouse is on a thermostat set at 50ºF. I ran out of time and didn't cover two citrus trees. They should be OK down to 28ºF.

Here's hoping they will be all right. It is currently no lower than 31 here. Come on summer..... 8 )

It's 30 here and frost on the ground.

31 here and frost too, but the GH is a nice toasty 43.

I was up at the unGodley hour of 4:00am (to give my insulin dependent diabetic dog his shot so he could have his blood suger level taken at 10:00am!) and it was 26. When I took my kids to school at 8:00 it had warmed up to 36.

Our low was 28. We had a hard frost. The yard looked white. The GH kept the temp at 45. The only thing in a pot frost bit was the canna leaves and blooms. It was under a sheet but it was freezing or below for so long. We hit freezing by 11pm. We didn't get above it until 8am.

Now we are at 47 and the GH is at 73. I may have to go open the door more. The sun is shining but the wind is still brisk.

I hope everybody made it through the night ok.

I feel lucky--only 38 here. But the wind never stopped blowing and its still blowing. I think its about 68 out there now and expected 50 tonight.

well hang on to your hats, because it's supposed to get windier and cooler with another cold front coming through tomorrow. I hate the wind. I feel like I'm back in Oklahoma.

windy is fine--it doesn't freeze here if its windy
=)

Right now the forecast is for temperatures in the high 30s, but that can change in a minute.

I thought I had wrapped my Brug using enough tape and staples to keep the bubble wrap in place. This morning I found some of the wrap under my Jeep about 100' away and the rest around the base of the plant. The leaves are toast, but it will be a day or two before I can tell if the branches were damaged. My Meyer lemon and Valencia orange made it uncovered without damage.