Yeah, it's the end of the line here as well. Tomorrow night's low is supposed to be 34 degrees, 29 on Sat. night, and 32 on Sunday. I have a few pots here at the house that could go in the garage, and could cover a few things here, but I don't have anything large enough to cover all of the plants down at the community garden, so the kids and I will be spending the day harvesting everything tomorrow. I'll try and post some pictures on my grow log thread once it's all done. We're pretty much right on schedule. The first freeze is usually the first or second week in October, although we often get a light frost or two in September.

Michelle: my question is why don't we want to use plastic, and by doing so, why can't it touch the plants and leaves? You can use plastic if that's all you have, and lots of people use clear plastic wrapped around tomato cages, etc. for its greenhouse-like effects. It's just that there are better insulators than plastic. The not touching the leaves thing is probably for two reasons: 1) It's the air trapped under the plastic that insulates the plants, and where the plants touch the plastic, there is no insulation, and, since the plastic itself is a poor insulator, it will essentially conduct the cold directly onto plant parts in contact. With things like actual frost blankets, etc., there are also tiny air pockets in the cloth itself that provide insulation. Plastic doesn't have that. Think about how well you can feel hot and cold through plastic gloves vs through cloth gloves. 2) Moisture condenses easily on plastic and stays there, and parts of plants that get wet during a frost can be more damaged than parts of plants that stay dry. Frost cover, etc. tends to be breathable and wicks moisture so doesn't present this problem as badly. I don't think it's a big deal if a few bits and pieces here and there come in contact with plastic, such as would happen if you wrapped a tomato cage in plastic. But sometimes people misunderstand wrapping and do it too tightly.

If the temperature stayed below zero, the garage would fall to below zero too. Insulation dampens the interior temperature swings. More insulation increases the damping factor, but without a heating and/or cooling source any closed structure will be too cold or hot to work in comfortably unless it is located in a very mild climate.

I also have been working on my "keeping room"--an 8x11 room on the northernmost corner of our 120 year old wood-frame home in Indiana (It has a window and about 1/3 of the floorspace is the stairwell to the basement. While the stairwell is "old" I am not convinced it is original to the house--it may have been added when a bedroom upstairs was converted to a bath as the plumbing runs through this room behind a false wall and the waste pipe is boxed in (and nicely stained to match the woodwork). This basement configuration is not the best because this is the cold part of our basement (and we haven't done a good job weatherproofing our basement yet) and there's no way to shut off the basement from the laundry room. Since there's plumbing in the basement and this room (it's a laundry room/pantry now, I need to keep my room above freezing even though it doesn't have a heat run (and I wouldn't want to heat it since it's really part of the basement), I need to keep it above freezing. The room had an ancient (1960?) in-wall space heater (from the time when it was a bathroom) which was broken, and since it's a laundry room and there is a lot of fabric in the room, I don't really want a space heater in there. The first thing I did was look at the window--it was 8' tall, missing its storm, rattled and the glazing needed some attention (about 40 years ago!). I realize that's not your problem--is the gas still good in your window? You could also try a thermal curtain on the window if that's not enough. The second thing I did was caulk the trim and patch every crack in the room. Then I painted. The paint wasn't necessary for R-value reasons, but it seems to me the room was "tighter" after I painted...it felt like all the little cracks in the plaster were "sealed" after I sealed, primed, and painted the plaster. Tomorrow we have a windy zero day coming...that's my test to see how much better the room is... my basement has offset rooms also, and they do not match the floorplan of the house above--and 2 of the front rooms are over crawlspace. I think that your next task should be to figure out what's underneath your keeping room since it could be wind blowing... if the floor in there is wood and has "gaps" maybe you can feel a draft (with wet hands)...or you could take a bright work light and point it at the floor, then go down in the basement (at night if it's not too creepy, lol)with the lights out in the surrounding rooms...so that the work light on the floor will be a "beacon" calling you to the room. A more invasive way to do this would be to drill a hole in the floor (in a place you don't want to look at every day, lol! maybe in the joint between two boards or in a knothole where you can patch it later. If that doesn't work, you may want to try to measure from some landmark like your kitchen water pipes...or if you're not afraid to pull up a floorboard (I am!)...that'd be cutting to the chase... The other thing I was wondering is...my keeping room's ceiling is a kneewall attic...it got much warmer in the room when we insulated the floor of that attic. All the rest of my house is 2 stories with a huge attic, but this room (and part of my kitchen) is 2 rooms below and 1 above with triangle attics on top of the 2 rooms below, so they are cold. What's the ceiling of your room?