I covered potatoes because the foliage freezes easily. The taters don't die, but the energy spent regrowing foliage is energy that would have gone into setting tubers.

I covered tomatoes and bush beans because, obviously, they are warm season veggies and tonight's temperatures will not be warm-season temperatures.

I covered two long beds of mixed brassicas and greens that include lettuce, kale, collards, broccoli, mustards, cauliflower, spinach and brussels sprouts. Most of those probably would not suffer freeze damage if we only get as low as forecast, but the lettuce is more tender than the others and is interplanted with them, so in order to cover the lettuce scattered throughout the beds, I had to cover the entire beds.

I covered the peony because it has buds about to blossom.

I did not cover any of the perennials, any annuals growing with them (mostly cool-season ones), herbs, volunteer warm season flowers, peas or onions. They all should be fine. I didn't cover fruit trees or dewberries nor any shrubs, vines or trees.

It was 84 degrees here around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. so I'm hoping the ground soaked up a lot of that heat and will help the root zones of the plants stay warm. We are getting colder---down into the uppers 50s and very windy now. The wind chill is a lot worse than the actual temperature.

Our overnight low is only expected to be around 30-32 degrees, so I'm not real worried, as long as the wind doesn't blow the row covers off the tomato plants and beans. It shouldn't, but Oklahoma weather does crazy stuff sometimes. I used row covers that give 8 degrees of protection, but that rating assumes low wind to no wind. The row covers are less effective with strong wind, so I hope these strong winds don't blow all night long.

All my flats of plants are back indoors either in the mudroom on a baker's rack there or on the breakfast room table.

Had we been going down below 25-28 degrees, I would have covered up even the peas and onions, but we aren't. Onions ought to be good down to 20 degrees, by the way, for anyone worried about theirs.

Remember that an important part of the equation will be how long you stay below freezing. One hour at 25 or 26 degrees? A lot of plants will tolerate that. Eight hours at the same temperature? Likely to be more damaging. None of us really know what we'll find until we uncover our plants and see how they look.

I dug out some sheets. (That was a walk down memory lane which my emotions don't need right now. "Oh, these sheets are from Ethan's camo room--age 6." "How pretty--Mason's sheets when she had pink gingham and white eyelet ruffles on her bed".)

ANYWAY, I didn't realize I had hoarded up so many sheets. The peas, strawberries, coneflowers, broccoli, greens, lettuce are all covered now.

The onions are not. The cabbage, radishes, and beets are not. The carrots in Smart Pots? Wonder if they'll be okay. I might set them inside before bed.

Just need to bring the baby chicks in. And put trash bags over the columnar trees.

We are supposed to get to 26...and not above freezing until noon.

It's my first spring freeze/frost/snow too. I just did whatever I could. Covered my potatoes, asian greens, lettuce, kale, carrots, onions, garlic, sweet pea flowers and peonies. May ask DH to cover my new roses too. Used everything I could find. Plastic sheeting, burlap sacks, plastic covers that hang over your clothes at the dry cleaners and old pillow cases. I hope the clothespins would hold them well onto the bamboo sticks.

It's so cold my stinkin' dog wouldn't go out to do her business.

I didn't cover anything. I think everything in the garden is cold hardy enough for this. But I did bring my wife's lemon tree back onto the sun porch.

I awoke very late this morning, as it was getting light. There's a light snow on the ground, and there's a breeze too. We'll see. Pretty sure we've lost the plums, pears and peaches for this year.

George

I would have loved to cover my Iris patch... but don't have anything to use for that size patch, with the height of the Iris. I did put an empty rainbarrel over my comfrey... nothing else is out there to cover...

Moni

Jennifer, I bet those sheets were a long walk down memory lane. I bet you were glad you saved them all since they came in so handy for covering up plants. The things you did not cover should be fine as long as they weren't dehydrated to begin with.

Eileen, That's really all any of us can do when one of these cold spells pop up---we do what we can and try not to worry about what we couldn't do. Sometimes plants are a lot more resilient than we think and don't suffer the damage we expected. Other times, plants we thought would survive the forecast cold unharmed will suffer some harm. I think prior cold weather conditioning (or lack of such) plays a big role in whether plants have a little damage, a lot or none. That part of it is out of our hands.

George, I am sorry about the fruit. We stayed a bit warmer than expected and still were at 35 degrees when I woke up at 4 a.m. We didn't drop down to 32 degrees on our thermometer until about 8:45 a.m. Now there's a light misty sort of drizzle falling. Probably not enough to add up to anything in the rain gauge---just slightly heavier than fog. I don't expect we'll be at or below 32 long enough this morning to hurt our small fruit, but I could be wrong about that. All our trees are post-bloom by a week to three weeks, so the fruit is probably at the worst size for freeze damage. If we lose it, we lose it.

I took a quick look at the garden this morning. Everything I covered is still covered. Everything I did not cover looks fine, and that includes warm-season perennials that are blooming.

The issue in many cases with whether or not cold damage will occur to plants is the period of time spent below a certain threshold. The cold tolerance of different plants varies so you can see one plant take a lot of damage while something beside it shows none.

Here's the map that shows consecutive hours of temperatures below freezing. Once your area rises back above freezing, this map zeroes out.

OK Mesonet: Consecutive Hours Below Freezing

If you see a red dot and no data for a specific station, that means the thermometer is not working or the data is not transmitting.

Moni, I didn't cover my irises, which are in bloom, and they looked fine this morning. I hope your plants fared as well.

Dawn

I have 2 of those mini greenhouses so they have covers over them (taped down in the wind). And I dumped a bunch of shredded leaves on the canna, daylilies, peas and potatoes. Everything else is on its own (iris, more daylily & canna, and sage). I watered everything well Thurs evening so hopefully it'll be fine.

I didn't cover onions or peas. Really only thing I have in the ground. Should have covered my peach and nectarine. Got down to 26. Any that set are probably gone.

George your pears already flowered?

Mike

Mike, That's too bad about the peaches and nectarines. Growing stone fruit here is such a challenge.

Dawn