Ezzirah,

If the seeds have not come up, I'm not sure you need to cover them. It's only if they are up, and they are tender. My experience is that peas, when they first come up, can handle quite a bit of cold. But once they get up, over 6 inches, then they become tender. What plants do you have up now?

George
Tahlequah, OK

In less some came up yesterday, none that is in ground

Ezzirah,

Yes, I would water them lightly. Wet roots are less vulnerable to freeze damage than dry roots and it is likely your seeds have sprouted roots underground even if there is no above-ground growth yet.

If you have any seedlings up above ground at all, use something to suspend the plastic slightly above them because any portion of the plant that touches the plastic will freeze.

I only use sheet plastic or tarps when I can use buckets, PVC pipe bent into hoop shapes, etc. to suspend the sheet plastic above the foliage.

I'll be outside today covering up 400 onion plants, 18 cabbage plants, lettuce, a few early herbs and about 150 snap pea plants that are already climbing a trellis.

The onions will get grass clipping mulch a couple of inches thick, and then just as the sun begins to set, I'll hold handfuls of hay over the onion beds and shake the hay lightly so it falls gently upon the top of the mulched beds and covers up any foliage sticking up above the mulch. I don't want it to pack down really hard and bend or break the green onion tops.

For the cabbage and lettuce, I'll put a cat litter bucket (I've saved them for 11 years, so I have lots and lots and lots of them) over each mulched cabbage and lettuce plant, and then will put rocks or metal fence posts or something on top of the buckets to keep them from blowing off. Of course, my normally lovely garden will then resemble a redneck garden full of yellow-and-red Tidy Cat buckets, but my neighbors are used to such strange goings on here and won't bat an eye at that.

For the sugar snap peas, which are planted on both sides of a 35' long trellis and are already climbing the trellis, I'm going to somehow attach a sheet of 4 mm plastic to either side of the trellis, so that I end up with something like a temporary A-frame greenhouse over the peas. I'll probably duct-tape the plastic sheets to the trellis and lean green metal fence posts against the trellis so the plastic lies on top of the green posts. Then, I'll use more fence posts or rocks or something to weigh down the plastic where it meets the ground. I'm going to put water-filled buckets and bottles along either side of the pea rows this morning as soon as the sun comes up. (We have a big barn to store all my collected junk that I use to protect plants, and now you know why....) Those bottles and buckets of water will serve as solar collectors, absorbing heat all day long and then keeping the plants warm as they release the heat when they cool tonight.

Herbs will get big flower pots over them with something heavy on top to keep them from blowing off.

The cool-season flowers like larkspur, hollyhocks and malva sylvestris 'Zebrina' might or might not get sheets or blankets thrown over them. The roses are on their own as is the pink evening primrose (it won't die and you can't kill it, so I'll let the primrose deal with the snow on its own).

I'll set up a sprinkler in the middle of the fruit trees, which are now in bloom and will turn on the sprinkler when our temperatures get down to about 34. I hate the idiocy of running a sprinkler during a storm, but it could save my peach and plum harvest.

How well I get everything covered up just depends on how windy it is and how long the heat holds today, but we're supposed to get up to 70 degrees this afternoon before the cold front roars in, so I'd appreciate it if all of you north of me slow down the front and don't let it come south too early....I want to have my pretty sunny afternoon!

Raised beds actually work to your advantage, sort of, in these conditions because soil in raised beds warms up more quickly than grade level soil, but unfortunately soil in raised beds can cool more quickly in cold conditions.

Our local weather guys have half-jokingly mentioned a 'green thumb' alert for 3 or 4 days now, and it seemed sort of funny when the snow was forecast to stay in NW OK. Now that the snow may make it to us along the Red River, or even go down into portions of north-central Texas, it isn't so funny any more. I bet some folks in my county have tomato plants in the ground, and I hope they mulch them well and cover them all.

When all that is done, I have 21 flats of plants to carry inside, mostly broccoli, tomato and rhubarb seedlings. Yesterday, I only had 15 flats, but then I potted up the broccoli into larger paper cups and that means only 28 plants per flat, so it is a lot of flats. I can't imagine where I'll put them all, but I'll put them someplace.

The sprouting seed potatoes go back into the root cellar.

There. I hope I haven't forgotten anything.

Dawn

There are some advantages to planting late, I guess. All of mine are still inside. I may have the latest garden of all, but at least I don't have anything to cover tonight.

Hi,

Thanks, Dawn, for the detailed way to cover plants. This is the first time I have actually gotten plants *in the ground* this early. Praying for an abundant harvest for all.

God Bless,
Connie of
Casey, Connie and Crew of 13

I got home from work and got outside and took .7 mil. plastic sheets and folded them over and put it over the beds. Nothing has come up yet, except my mesclun greens I saw some weee little plants in there, there is a screen on top that keeps the neighbor cat out, so the plastic went over that.

Dawn: Peas on the trelis? Get on with your bad self....when did you start them?

I was afraid that with this El Nino year, the snow and ugly weather had yet to offer more excitement for us gardeners. So, the only thing I have outside are my winter sown containers, and the snow will only benefit them.

There are a few seedlings up of my plants that self sow, but even if those are lost, many more will follow when the weather warms up to consistent temps.

I am a bit concerned about my blueberries which have buds, and may go out but they are sitting under the pine tree which offers a bunch of protection, too.

The ugly ole Bradford Pear is putting out a few blooms and it will probably get bit, but hey, do I care? Nada. My only prayer for it is that it won't topple over in the wind and damage anything. Grrrrrr!

I have the most spectacular Hellebore orientalis this year with its beautiful purple blooms. This is the best year for it in the last 5 years, and I think it may have something to do with the cooler temps we've experienced this winter. Some of these plants just don't do as well if we have a warmer winter. But, give them a cold, cold winter, and they are absolutely gorgeous!

I have buds on my later daffodils and they may get bit as well. Will have to see. Sometimes things just happen that we don't have any control over, and they'll be back next year in that event.

I hope everybody's gardens survive this and please check in as you can.

Susan