I feel your pain. We keep dipping into freezing temps or just flirting with them. I am out covering everything. I will say that I only covered my broccoli and cauliflower plants when it got into the mid 20s. If it is in the mid 30s or just at 32, I don't bother. Same with lettuce.

UGH! I covered everything with sheets and still lost all my cukes and squash, and probably some other stuff I haven't dared to look at yet :(

daylilyfanatic4,
I just got in from covering my impatiens, potatoes, and annual flowers with sheets, towels, empty flower pots, and table cloths...whatever I could find that I didn't mind getting dirty. I wouldn't worry so much about the lettuce and peas. They're tough. I would try to cover the broccoli, cauliflower, and strawberries if possible. I wish us all good luck with this freeze occurring tonight. I knew after all of these unseasonably high temperatures lately we were going to be hit with a doozie. Stay warm everyone!
Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Kim's Garden...hopefully it'll still be intact tomorrow morning

In the same boat,(last frost date today?) rushed out, covered the few toms I have planted with upturned flowerpots, a couple have WOW anyway, and extra earth and row cover on Pot's, and row covers on Brassicas. peas and strawb's uncovered, nothing on earth can kill a strawbery except me ;-) so I leave them alone, hehe, and I observed my peas last fall and they bounce back, so do cabbages ect in the fall but as I have no head formation, decided not to risk them, as in could it check the head formation? no idea!
Fingers crossed, batten down the hatches, and good luck everyone :-)

Darn, we're also in the freezer tonight. They are predicting temps in the low 20s so I'm fearful many of my plants won't make it. I converted my entire garden to raised beds this year (22 of them). So, the good news is that they warmed up nicely in April which allowed me to put in lots of things. The bad news is that over the last week the weather has been horrible with snow yesterday and a hard freeze tonight. I wish I had waited a bit longer before I put in so many things. What global change?

Can you send some cold weather here? Its way too hot for the season now =(

Not to wory about those cool season crops.
I had cabbage, napa, lettuce, arugula, onions, garlics, chards and radish
in my garden all last winter. We had many nights under 20F, down to 14F.

I just had 29F the other night and my brussel sprouts/onions did fine uncovered. Also have tomatoes out that i covered and they have done fine. Only plants that are showing damage are the dahlias.

We had a cold couple of nights, but the only damage was to some volunteer cucurbits and nasturtiums. Actually I think the cool weather is doing the greens and peas some good. A couple of arugulas have already started to bolt because of the early heat.

But I'm glad I waited to seed melons/cukes and put in tomatoes/peppers!

So, what about the rest of you who were dreading the cold front? Did your plants survive?

no fatalities :) hope everyone had a similar outcome.

Monday night 5/11 we hit a low of 25 degrees. Alot got frost on them, I covered as many as I could with large heavy feed bags, that trick worked two weeks ago with a frost. Just gave up and pulled all my pepper transplants figured they had a better chance bare rooted sitting in a milk crate in the basment and replanted at a warmer time. Guess need to go back to my mini green house's of water in milk jugs and a towel tossed over them each night for a bit. Major temp swings here, we went form a high of 93 a few weeks back to a dip of 25 low. Even my Iris got frosted.

ML

Covered the marigolds and potato plants. Marigolds did fine, potato plants took some damage, but I think they will live. Covered with blankets, bath towels, and doubled up sheets. Hopefully we won't have too many more freezes! :-/

I covered all the sensitive plants with a double sheet (or sheet plus tarp), and everyone under double sheets (held off the plants by empty milk jugs) survived. We are talking the melons, squash, zucchini, beans, tomatoes, peppers, cardoon, and celery. I now realize I did not check the fennel. The eggplants, basil, and some of the tomatoes are still in pots inside.

But I ran out of sheets, and the two potato beds got single sheet. The heavily mulched one got beat up bad, I will see how many I will have to replace (I am guessing 1/3). The lightly mulched was nearly unscathed, all will survive. I learned long ago not to mulch under hoophouses, because the bare ground is crucial to moderating the temperature inside, but I never had to cover the potatoes before, and I had some wood chips to dispose of which went into the potato beds a month ago.

No mulch until June, that's always been my rule, and now will be strictly applied to all veggies.

Pretty amazing to see folks who are in a "warmer" zone than me with freezing problems.

We had a freeze watch for Saturday night here. Luckily it only got to 36 degrees. Good thing - because I have everything planted outside already - like much of you all.

The University of Illinois says our average last frost date for Central Illinois is around April 15th - with the last frost date of May 1st.

We've had some pretty bad winds though - 25 to 35 mph sustained. It whipped around the plastic fencing I have some peas on and did quite a bit of damage to them. So next year I'm only using chicken wire for pea fencing since I didn't have any problems with it last year (doubled the amount of peas so needed more fencing).

Here is a link that might be useful: BsnTech Gardening Blog

I am pretty sure most of my pepper plants will not make it. I have already gone out and purchased some pepper seedlings (98 cents a piece) to replace those that are lost. I am taking it a step farther, and planting most of my peppers in containers.

My dining room has turned into a makeshift green house. It's filled with containers of peppers and tomatoes. I also have a whole collection of herbs and flowers waiting to be planted. I've started a few herbs from seed and was thinking about transplanting them, but will hold off on that.

I am ready for some warmer weather. I am usually out gardening every day after work, and with this rainy, cold weather, it hasn't been happening. Sunday is supposed to be in the 70s (fingers crossed)!

Everything survived but there was damage to the strawberry leaves. The fruit are fine though. My broccoli is looking like it will button so even though it survived it might not produce. The peas, arugula, and lettuce all look great and the spinach is strating to bolt. I really doged a bullet with the frost and should be planting warm season stuff this weekend!

I had 33½° the other morning. I had the larger sweet corn under a tent of clear plastic and the newer corn under a tarp...belately. The larger corn was fine and the newer corn was singed just a bit as were some of the potatoes.

THe tomatoes and melons were not transplanted yet...then.

This weekend - I can hardly wait! Enough of the cold rain and cool temps, hello 70s! Today I found a ten gallon tub at a thrift store for $2. It looks beat up, and might only last me two seasons, but for $2, I am okay with that. I plan to plant some warm weather plants in it just as soon as I fill the darn thing up with dirt. It takes forever to fill up a ten gallon container!

I think my cukes succumbed, even though I had them covered. They are not looking so hot this morning. The lower true leaves are yellow. I'm prolly gonna need replacements this weekend

veggiefaery

I hope you aren't planning to put garden soil in it. To grow plants in containers, you need good growing soil. Garden soil packs down and the plants die from lack of aeration, and you'd expose your plants to any pests or diseases that are in the soil.

Maybe you intend to use growing soil, but when you said "dirt", that means the stuff from the earth to me! And you are right -- you're going to need a lot of soil for a ten gallon container, but it's well worth it.

All I can say is that you guys are really, really brave to be planting out all those warm weather crops so early. I brought my tomato and pepper plants inside last weekend and they've stayed there. I'm sure they're not happy about the low light conditions (they no longer fit under the grow lights), but at least they are surviving. I'd love to plant out this weekend, but I'll need to start hardening off again and will, as usual, probably end up planting Memorial Day weekend. (Peppers probably the following weekend.) I haven't even started presprouting my cukes, squash, and beans.

But I am eating lettuce and brocolli, and my peas are going gangbusters.

I'm with Susan - I haven't planted out any of my warm weather crops yet.

The peppers are inside under lights, but the eggplant are sitting in front of the family room sliding door for a week now. I hope they don't get too leggy, but there is not enough room for them under the lights.

The tomatoes are in a heated cold frame outside, but I won't plant them out into the open garden for another two weeks. I did just start my squash plants inside yesterday.

My lettuce is also going great, along with pak choi, spinach, and arugula. The brocolli is tall, but won't start forming heads for a couple of weeks yet.

One casualty I had is potatoes. I didn't realize that they had sprouted until I saw the blackened foliage on Tuesday. The sprouts were only about an inch above the soil, so I'm hoping they will just put out more. It's my first time growing potatoes, so I hope I didn't blow it!

It is my understanding that the potatoes will come back even if the foliage dies. I covered all of the potatoes I had planted every night this week that there was a freeze warning, but they still took some damage. Some of the leaves are black and drooped. :-/

anney- thanks for the tip. No, I'm not using garden soil. I am using top soil the city sells. It's just dirt. I know a little garden soil is mixed in because that happens sometimes, but I don't think that will matter.