i am south of Ft. smith and showing a chance or rain for the next 4 days with the lowest temps to be between 35 and 40 degrees this coming Wed and Thur. I will need drier weather before I can do anything. I will also have to start hardening off all over.

I must have some kind of cold frame or greenhouse before next year.

The Edmond forecast shows some 36 and 38 degree nights. At my house I've had frost on 36 and 38 degree nights. So, if you're going to cover them up, those would be the nights to watch.

Otherwise, you may be in the clear but none of us has a crystal ball that allows us to foresee the future. A big cold front will be moving across the continent next week so everyone needs to be watching that carefully. If it starts to come further south than they currently think it will, some parts of OK may see freezing temperatures.

My personal feeling here at my house (quite a bit south of you, obviously) is that we are more or less done with the freezing weather. Even my trumpet creeper and wisteria are leafing out and the Tx Bluebonnets have buds ready to blossom. I moved all my warm-season veggies, herbs and flowers from the light shelf indoors today to the unheated greenhouse. I'm still not going to put any warm-season plants in the ground yet. It was 81 degrees here today and 80 yesterday so it sure feels like spring.

Here is a link that might be useful: NWS Forecast for Edmond

Reed, You may not have to worry quite as much about those cold nights this week. My forecast has improved even more since yesterday....going up another 2-5 degrees for the overnight low. All in all, the overnight lows that were supposes to be 36-38-36 at our house are now forecast to be in the low to mid 40s. If your forecast has improved as much as mine, you may not have to cover up any plants this week.

Dawn

Dawn,

I have three days showing 39,40, and 39. I'm willing to risk it. I figure that, if the 23 degree weather didn't get my peach tree in the back yard, then maybe I have a micro climate that keeps it a few degrees above what is supposed to happen. Thoughts?

Reed

You may have a warm microclimate.

Keep a couple of things in mind:

First, one night in early May about 5 or6 years ago, when our forecast overnight low was 50 degrees, we went to 32 degrees and most of my plants, which were roughly waist-high at that point, died. I thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing that never would happen again, and it hasn't happened again....at our house. However, the very next year an almost identical thing happened to George in Tahlequah although I think it happened to him in early or mid-April. I remember it well because he lost his Baker Family Heirloom tomato plants, and Carol, with whom George had shared seeds, had grown some of them and had extra Baker Family Heirloom plants to give back to him at the spring plant swap to replace his dead plants. So, the moral of the story is: forecasts can be very wrong sometimes! Who would ever have thought a forecast could be off by 18 degrees?

So, take your forecast with a grain of salt. Remember too, when temperatures are recorded at official recording stations, they are recorded at 5' above ground. Your plants are at the ground level and a foot or two above it. So, when they say 38 or 39, expect it may be a couple of degrees cooler at a foot above ground level, for example. You could check your weather online first thing in the morning and see the official overnight low was 38 and then could walk outside and find damaged or dead plants. So, watch carefully and if your temperature drops a lot between 5 and 8 p.m., run out and cover up the plants.

I guess that's the best advice I have....if the afternoon and evening cool in a manner that seems too rapid, take the time to cover up the plants. I try to watch how much my temperatures fall between 5-7 pm or 5-8 pm on nights when we might be getting close to freezing. Sometimes they fall so fast that it worries me and I cover up plants even if we are forecast to be in the lower 40s.

If the plants are up against the wall of a structure, it likely will absorb heat, which will help them.

I don't have any tomato plants in the ground yet, and now have pools of water standing everywhere, but I likely will put tomato plants in the ground sometime this week after the soil dries a little.

I always watch my plants and the weather like a hawk once they are in the ground until at least May 5th (because my latest late freeze has occurred on May 4th). Normally, I only have to cover them up once or twice after I put them in the ground and, most of the time, I am covering them up out of an abundance of caution, and awaken to find we stayed warm enough that there was no frost or freeze.

If it doubt, better to err on the side of safety and cover them than to spend all of the next day wishing you had.

I'm linking the 6-10 day outlook, and the temperatures look nice.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: 6-10 Day Outlook-Temperatures

After a wet and chilly few days this week, it looks like a change in the atmospheric pattern will occur. Warm weather will stick around for a while, after Thursday. The only bad thing with this is that we may go right into severe weather mode with the warmer weather. It's way to early to get specific with the forecast next week, but if the current weather models hold true, we'll be primed for wet and stormy next week.

I really think this week is winter's last gasp.

Lee