Cover them with tarps.. Better yet bring them inside with bright lights..

I cant pull them, they are in the ground. I remember hearing of strawberry farmers watering there crop to help avoid damage. Do you think that would help before tarping?

Tarp them.
I think they water in the morning, to wash the ice off the plants, but you have to do it before the sun hits the plants.

Jumping the gun is never a wise decision when it comes to planting tender crops. Frankly, I doubt that a tarp will help at those temperatures, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

I thought kale/spinach/peas like the cold???

They prefer 40-50 degree lows.. Man, they are in the ground! Get gallons of warm/hot water and sit the gallons near the plants.. The sun will warm the water and release it during the night.. That along with a tarp could be the difference between life and death... Hurry up and get the warm water in gallons/buckets whatever holds water and put it near your plants, and tarp them bad boys thick! Let me know how it goes

Best of luck,
Joe

I've had snow fall on spinach, lettuce and broccoli and temps in the high 20s with no protection and no damage. I think they'll be fine. They may grow slowly but I think they'll survive.

You can count on raw-nature for off the wall replies. anyhow, mature kale and kale transplants are completely different mammals. you can tarp, you can water the ground copiously, and you can place water containers under the tarp. The water is to drastically improve the thermal ballast of your garden. To freeze a gallon of water, it takes 1.3 Mega Joules, and the temperature under the tarp will not go below 32F until all water is frozen.

Off the wall replies? You never put jugs of water by your plants to protect them from cold?? What is your brilliant suggestion than glibby?

Keep us informed! I still say that low 20s is too much to ask of your young seedlings. I am really hoping to be wrong. Snow is a great insulator....and high twenties are a far cry from the low twenties.

Your spinach will be fine. I don't grow the others but I had spinach grow throughout the winter one year-snow on it one day, new leaves a few days later.
Ate spinach all winter long that year.

Young seedlings will not fare as well as mature plants which mature spinach and lettuce can over winter, seedlings however will most likely die.

All of my reading said plant "as soon as ground could be worked", so I did...

They seemed to be doing pretty good. i am sure to lose some, but I have one more night to go. I will update.

For tonite: Get out your xmas lites. Lay them along the rows of seedlings. At sunset, cover the rows with the tarp and switch on the lites.

As soon as the ground can be worked is a bit misleading, since many times you can do better by waiting a tad longer. Also, that phrase is used when talking about planting seeds outside, not planting transplants, I think that's why you are (potentially) running into trouble. How did the little guys fare?

My kale has been covered in snow (spinach did not miss a beat until something ate it) twice it isn't huge, but it is still growing. They are cool/cold weather plants, covering should be fine, but let us know how they did.

I set out my seedlings in mid March during last year's false spring. They survived the hard April freeze with no trouble, despite temps in the low-mid 20s.

I use plastic sheets and old pots to cover. I still mlose some. Let us move to Florida. I am dreaming

Looks like I lost most. I am hoping that some will come back strong.

Man that sucks! No hard feelings though,gardenings all about trial and error! You helped many people out,including yourself by making that mistake..

Thanks,
Joe

Do you know how low it got?

Wow, I am surprised you lost them! I have grown all those except lettuce at those temps. Did you cover them?

My sympathies :(.

What temps were their hardening off nights? Methinks they were just too young to handle the shock.

Probably the size of the plants (tiny) combined with the (possible) lack of hardening off, combined with the low temperature. The further you get below freezing, less time it takes for a plant to freeze, and the smaller the plant, the more quickly it will freeze, and if it hadn't had time to switch gears from warm weather to freezing weather...

The good news is that there is plenty of time for you to buy new transplants and try again. Though with current weather you might have to look out for heat stress instead.

Eh. all real learning costs. it will make you a better gardener, Totem.

Thanks for the support!

They were about 150 starts in total. All about 3 inches tall, not small.

I had hardened them off for about a week. Starting a few hours a day leading up to full days.

We had 4 nights ranging from 26-28. The first night caught me by surprise so they were not covered. The last 3 I cover with mostly clear poly that I had saved up.

Some may come back but that is like 10%. Leaves have a white look and they look limp.

I thought the kale would have made it for sure...

Time to start over!

Small compared to the mature plant size, which is what I was referring to. Good luck!

Was the poly touching the plants?

Yes the poly was touching the plants.

Ah-ha... that may have contributed to your die off. With poly, I try to leave an insulating air layer, as it seems that it conducts the cold directly to the plants if it touches them.

Jan

I still think it's weird. Have you checked the 'observed weather' data, to see how cold it actually got, or do you have a thermometer that records?

looks like they updated the low those 2 nights to 23F.

I did not have a thermo.

So have you seen any recovery? Like where the poly wasn't touching the plants?

I'd say I lost 85%