Frost Damage

Regrettably, I lost all the Melampodium (fortunately, I only had 8).  Temperatures last night dropped to 31, and I barely managed to hold off a frost.  Melampodium is extremely unhappy even at 35.  I purchased replacements for those today when I ran out for this year's heliotrope.

It also looks like a dozen or so marigolds were frost-burned in the northeastern garden.  I'll need to replace those as well when I can go get the Janie marigolds.

It's a shame, but at least I only lost 20 plants out of 850 or so, and they're easy and cheap to replace.

On the up side, it looks like we're clear of frost for at least a week, by which time a frost becomes extremely unlikely!

An Unusual Frost

I've been spending plenty of time putting in my annuals for the last few days. Right now, I have most of 5 gardens done out of 9 total, with two of the heavy-hitters done already. There are still two larger gardens to go, but at least the other two are considerably smaller.

Naturally, we went under a frost warning last night and this. I picked up a neat trick some years ago, although I don't remember where. Something's telling me that it was from Watch Your Garden Grow on NBC in the morning, but I could be wrong.

Regardless. I set my watering system to water for 3 minutes at 2 AM, 4 AM, and 6 AM. The water is fifty degrees, which is more than enough to warm the leaves, and water takes a long time to lose heat. As it freezes, it releases even more heat, limiting the damage to the plants.

If you don't have a watering system, water heavily before the sun goes down. That will carry some of the heat up top down below, plus inject enough water to get you through until morning. Of course, if temperatures dip well below freezing, nothing will work. For very delicate plants, it may not work, and in windy conditions it dries off fast and may cause more issues than it solves.

If you're reading this on a frosty night and the sun's already down, water anyway. It'll still help.