It was 4 AM when I got to the garden Wednesday morning. The forcast had called for a low of 32 degrees. It was 28 with a very heavy frost on all the plants. There was a full moon up and clear skys so I didn't have to stagger around in the dark. I used a 3 gallon tank sprayer with 2 gallons of warm water (95 degrees) to rinse the frost from the tomatoes and warm the soil a little around the base of the plants. By the time I finished the first round of rinsing the temp had dropped to 26.7 where it stayed until the sun came up. 48 of the tomatoes were under boxes and they had already been through 2 nights when it got down to 28 degrees without damage so I wasn't worried about those. I was concerned about the 176 which were uncovered and appeared to be at a popsicle tryout. They were due for a spraying with Garlic, Red Pepper, and Sage tea, so after rinsing them twice with warm water, I used warm Garlic, Red Pepper, and Sage tea for the final rinse. Might as well kill 2 birds with one stone as they say.
Now a little sharing is in order. What good is knowledge if you don't spread it around.
All of the plants in the boxes were undamaged and more blooms opened today.
A number of the exposed plants appear to be undamaged (I'll need a couple more days of sunshine to be positive). The biggest surprize was 41 F4 Better Boy plants none of which appear to have damage. The F3 parent of these plants won 2 double blind taste tests against other F1 Better Boys last year so I'm happy they made it.
Potato leaf varieties suffered more damage than regular leaf varieties. I don't have my plants labeled and numbered yet so I won't know specfics about each plant until I update the plant out sheets which won't happen until I replace those which have any damage with new healthy plants (The ground is too wet now to transplant).
I'm still on Plan A. Plan B involves a group of younger plants. All the current plants in the ground were seeded at the same time and I still have replacements from that seeding waiting in the wings for problems like this. The plant out sheets I use reflect any replacements and the transplant date so I can see how it effects fruit set, vigor, etc..
The reason I still have replacement plants is a number of friends who only show up at this time of year to ask if I have any extra tomato plants "I only need a couple of dozen." were told "Not now, but I might have some later on."
This cold spell isn't some fluke of weather or caused by "Climate Change". Around here we call it "Blackberry Winter", a 7 - 10 day cold snap with a couple of frosts which is worse some years than others and normally occurs when the Blackberries are in bloom (and they are in bloom now.).
Barring snow in July this should mark the end freezing weather for us and my boxes can come off in the next couple of days. Claud
