Blueboy, They will take some cold.....at 32 you are fine, take steps to protect fruit and open flowers at anything below 30. Frost is worse than the cold temps. I generally remove the late fall flowers and fruit as the fruit is just never good anyway but there were a couple hundred berries out there and when we got down to 23 a couple weeks ago it fried them as well as the open flowers. The swollen buds were fine as well as the buds that were already broken open. If the flowers are half grown and you get below 30 degree weather they will look ok sometimes but the flowers are damaged and can't seem to open. Interestingly on some of the plants buds further down the canes that were not swollen fruit buds are now swelling. It is like the BB keep some buds in reserve.

It did get down to 32 or 37, depending on which digital thermometer you believe here. I noticed the leaves of mums were a bit dark, like they had been effected..I haven't check thoroughly since coming home but I'll take a walk around the house in a few minutes. I took the creeping phlox outside when I got home today. They had been outside at the garden center, but under protective cover..filtered light I guess you'd say..it is 51 degrees now and we were just outside sitting and talking with the new neighbor and it was nice and warm. I may leave the phlox out again tonight. I never thought about turning pots upside down over the other..it is supposed to go back in 70's tomorrow and next day..we might have scattered showers(April Showers) showing up early! I will open the milk jugs up again when the weather shows up in the 70's. Some of the stuff needs to be either transplanted to a larger nursery pot or planted in the flowerbed.. Gardening is always about Trial and Error..that's the way we learn.

I thought I was going to find out the other night with a forcasted low of 24 degrees. I checked the foreast at 10:30pm and it still had 24 forecasted on every site. Including updated 9pm webcasts. I did have my doubts as it was 38 degrees at that point. Low and behold the low was 35 degrees. How the heck can you be off by 11 degrees that close in time? I must admit I was grateful. My tres have a life line yet for fall color! Most times the duration of the freeze will impact what happens. If it hits 32 (which technically is a freeze) for an hour, it'll have little impact for hardy plants. I've already had 30 and 31 degrees in mid-Sept and it did nothing to my decidious plants. They are just now taking on some color almost a month later. Fall color for new transplants is completely random. Some show their best colors due to the stress and other show NO fall color even though they are known for a good display. For example my 'Jelena' witch hazel (planted spring 2011) didn't have any fall color last year and isn't showing any color yet this year either. On the flip side my 'Girard's Purple' and 'Arnold Promise' had/have glorious fall color.

Ahh - New plant disease. LOL I almost did the same thing, but not with peppers. I have a newly planted salad bed that I stuck a few of my transplants into and planted seed in the rest. A few days later, I could see little green things all over it. Well some of the lettuces had started to come up and were teeny, tiny, but the rest was something blowing in from the neighbors tree. It was bright green and in tiny little pieces. Thanks for the pepper info. I was hoping that they would be a small plant, but was afraid they would not be. I think there are going to be some crowded plants in my garden this year. I wish seed companies would put the size of the fruit or other edible part of the plant AND the 'average' size of the plant on seed packages. It would certainly make planning easier.....and I HATE, HATE, HATE generic seed packages. If it weren't for the internet we probably wouldn't know what we were planting. LOL Actually I don't mind the Thompson and Morgan method of a generic package inside the 'picture pack'. I think the foil pack may also protect for a little longer. It looks like a good business decision to me since you don't have to use colored and expensive printing to print packs for things that never make it to the shelf. Just stuff the pack as your inventory needs require. With the date stamped on the inside pack only, you could use the same outside pack for years, but only pay printing costs for the ones you really sell or display. I think maybe the Brits got it right on that one. LOL I had two tomato plants outside last night. One was in a container and covered with a milk jug with the cap off and the bottom cut out. I slid it under a glass top table for the night, and the other was in the center of a huge container with a window across the top. The window didn't cover the top of the pot, but did help to shield the plant a little. Everything here looks good but it still feels cool at 48 degrees. I need to go pull my 'tomato wagons' out into the sun. Just as I was typing this the temp jumped to 50 so I guess the peppers get to come out also. We're walking, walking, walking. I need to go move a few more from their tiny blocks to a pot. I'm almost done with that task, but I am getting some pepper seed in the mail this week and I know I will have to plant a few of those. Do I need them? No, of course not, but they will be pretty in the garden. LOL