If there is one thing a gardener always has to remember – it’s that Mother Nature controls the show. So even after a few warm weeks of Spring, with humid days – and nights that rarely dipped below 60 – she came roaring back with a blast of cold to get us scrambling in the garden.
Our roma tomatoes covered up with lunch bags to protect them from frost
Every year, it’s always a guess as to when to put the tomatoes, peppers and other summer crops into the ground here in Ohio. We usually like to use the 15th of May as our rule of thumb – but we also consider things like soil temperature and the long-term forecast to decide when to take the plunge.
This year – with the unusually warm weather the last few weeks – the soil had warmed up beautifully. Add in a solid 10 days of warm temps with the long-range forecast – and we decided to roll the dice and put our plants in the ground a little early on the 6th of May. Well, as with most gamblers, we came up on the short end of the stick as last night’s predicted temperatures were changed to now dip to the frost mark!
So there we were last evening – covering up every single plant – over 120 in all of peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini and more.
New plantings are especially susceptible to frost
To protect them all, we use simple brown paper bags with a nail pushed through the bag and into the ground to hold it over the plant. It’s actually a very easy and inexpensive way to protect such a large number of plants – and a lifesaver when you need to keep from losing your future table food to frost!
The good news – according to the forecasts, it should be just a one night event. The temperatures are expected to rebound the rest of the week to the 50 to 55 degree nightly range that is more normal for our area. (Of course, those are the same forecasters a week ago that said we were out of the woods with frost for the year )
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