My garage is full of plants again. I have a few monster plants that will just get sheets like they did last week.

randy

Well if the map is right, I should be OK, but to be sure I put pots on the garden plants, seedlings in the house, bigger seedlings in the shed, peppers in the bunkhouse, and the neighbors big tarp over the container plants. I am very tired of this.

I hope everyone can protect their plants.

I'm not in the frost zone, but I covered everything up anyway......this is getting old. I'm predicted to be 39 and I'm sure I'll get colder than that.

Lynn

I heard that if you water your plants right before nightfall, the frost should not hurt your plants...

and if you do receive frost (light) to water your plants before the sun comes up..

I don't know if there is anything to this or not.. but I am going to try this..

I have Zinnia's seeds in the ground that are getting there 2nd leaf..
I have too much outside to even try to cover up.. and i am not even going to try.. If I loose plants I loose plants..

But we are Just on that boarder of the frost line..
we will see in the am.

I am just too tried tonight to do anything else

I filled our garage with plants too.

In the garden, I covered smaller plants with buckets and flower pots, again.

For the tomato plants that are too tall for 5-gallon buckets, I either threw blankets, quilts or sheets over the plant, tomato cage and all, or covered entire rows with tarps and 4 mm plastic. (It touches the cages, but not the plants, which would be a no-no if frost occurs.)

We weren't predicted to have a frost here, but I don't trust the forecast much, since they said 45 last weekend and we went to 32.

Kirts, Last weekend I did water my plants before bedtime, and then got up at 4:30 a.m. or so, and turned on the sprinkler and left it on until after sunrise. We went down to 32 degrees (a record for us for that date) and had a hard, hard frost but I had zero plant damage. The sprinkler usually works to mitigate frost damage, but not freeze damage, because of cellular rupture. Luckily, we only had frost and not a freeze....because, at 32, we could have had both.

I got up at 2:30 this morning to check the plants and it was a relatively warm 45 degrees with a heavy dew. Our mesonet station is showing 41 right now, so I expect we might get down to 38 or 40 here at our house, but I'm not expecting any damage and I think I'll go back to bed in a couple of minutes and not worry about it an more.

Even though moving all the plants inside was a pain in the neck, and covering them up was even more so, I'm not sorry I did it. Better safe than sorry.

Dawn

Went out at 4:00 am it was 37. There will be a hard frost here, but I'm not so sure it will freeze. It could though.

Glad I moved most of my stuff in.

randy

We had frost last night. I'm so glad I covered things up!

On the 24th (or 23rd) when we last had frost, I didn't cover. Instead I went out before daybreak and watered (wetted) all the tender plants I had out. We only lost one.

Somehow, someway, Gore would find a way to say that this is proof of global warming!

George

It bottomed out at 33 here at daylight. It was 37 on the porch where I left a few big plants covered with sheets.

I am now officially tired of spring. Bring on the nasty hot stuff. :-)

randy

I think I remember now why I never put out my houseplants on the porch before May 15th. Hopefully, we won't have any more threats of frost/freeze. I did water my plants yesterday just in case. You're right about that, Kirts!

Randy, I feel for you having to haul your plants around. BTW, how are those adeniums doing?

Susan

When I finally went back to bed at about 4 a.m., our mesonet station had dropped to 37 but we were still at 44, and we were at 44 when I went outside at 7:30 a.m., so I don't know what we dropped down to between 4 and 7:30, but we didn't have a frost!

Oh, Randy, I am not ready for the nasty, hot weather yet. Can't we have our usual month of "nice" May weather before the furnace cranks up? Actually, spring isn't the problem.....winter is. The calendar says spring, but winter keeps trying to sneak back into the picture just about every weekend.....

Susan, After two weird springs in a row, I'm starting to forget what it is that I "normally" do. LOL Next year will be a bad spring, no matter what the weather is like, because we'll all be remembering this year's late frosts and asking ourselves if we should plant "early", "on-time" or "late". Who knows?

George, I'm glad you covered stuff up. I was especially worried about you, Ilene and all the other folks in that corner of the state since the cold really seems to be hanging on there. Well, and in the Panhandle too.

MAYBE (dare I say this) the last frost scare is over and we can start worrying about the summer heat and drought. : )

Dawn

Susan,

The Adeniums aren't going to do too much until temps at night are at least above 50.

Have about 20 setting blooms right now. I need it to warm up quick. Just potted up about a thousand seedlings and have about 1000 more to go. And about 2200 seed to sow as soon as I can get to them.

Dawn,

We didn't have summer last year. Why should we have a spring this year? :-)

randy

I was too tired to get up very early, this is my day to sleep in. I know it was 37 at 4:30, when I got up to close a noisy cat up in the utiltiy room so I could sleep. DH said it was 36 about 7:00 am. He said he saw no frost but I may have got a light one. I had everything covered but my green beans and they look like they may have gotten a light frost. About half of them look dark and wilted...

Are we done with this cold yet? I'm tired of waiting. Dawn do you think we'll have another cold snap? I'm ready to take to wall-o-waters off the tomatoes and plant peppers and flowers!

Lynn

Lynn,

Well, how should I know? LOL

Honestly, I think we are done with it here in southern OK. For y'all, who knows? I think you probably are done with it....and, how long can you leave WOWs over the plants without the hot sun roasting them?

Last week, on the day after we went to 32 degrees, I looked at our extended 10-day forecast and felt a little concern for last night, because at that time I think they were saying 47 to 44 for us. Today, after looking at our extended 10-day forecast, I feel like the frosts are over.

If you look at your 10-day forecast and don't see anything below 45 degrees, I think you'll be OK. To me, 45 degrees is the magic number. If they say we are going to 45, I know we may go to 37 or 38 here along the Red River, and I get nervous since I usually have frost at 38 if it is clear and there is not wind.

If nothing lower than 45 shows for the next 10 nights, then why not go wild, remove the WOWs, plant all the warm-season stuff and have fun, fun, fun!

My fear is that the cold nights will cease and we will, quite suddenly, go from "too cold" to "too hot" overnight, and our plants will suffer greatly from that too.

Have a lovely day! I'll be out planting peppers and flowers today. If I am going to do it, you should too. That way, we can suffer and worry together if the weather turns cold again.....misery loves company. LOL

Dawn

randy,

I did not hear you say that....

I would like to see the temps much warmer at night, but the days are heavenly.

tomorrow they are calling for a bit of wind 5-10 MPH... easy as pie, from what we have been having..
Then a chance of rain on Tues. (I think)

I worked outside all day today.. in the flower beds, mowing. weeding.. moving things around.. etc...
I pulled myself inside to cook for DH, and while it was cooking I was back outside.. LOL
I didn't' even stop to eat today...
at 7:30 I came in for the night..... dragging myself.. just thought I over did it.. when I jumped in the shower.. I found why I was feeling bad... I hae fever starting....
Just an on going problem we are trying to find a way to fix.. This will keep me in bed once my fever spikes up at 103-04 later on tonight, for about 6-12 hours,sometimes even a high fever for 24 hours..... kinda of puts a damper on yard work that is for sure..

Oh No frost here this AM, just drops of mist on the plants.

I will check in once I am feeling better.

Kirts,

You DID hear Randy say that, and when the heat cranks up and we are getting cranky about it, we'll remind Randy that summer weather was what he wanted.

I hope you're feeling better soon, and that the doctors figure out why you keep spiking a fever.

Randy,

Well if we didn't have summer in '07, and we aren't having spring in '08, can we just skip winter in '09? Seems fair, doesn't it?

And, y'all, how can it already be 2008? It seems like it just changed from 1999 to 2000 such a short time ago....this decade is flying by!

Since Scott hasn't been around lately to say this, I'll say it: the cold weather is over. There will be no more freezing weather and no more frosts. Feel free to plant whatever you want now. There, did that make y'all feel better?

Dawn

Dawn - I suppose you are speaking for southern Oklahoma, but I also have the same feeling. The weather for Grove 10 days out has only one night of 45 and the rest looks good. I am going for it. I will probably hold off a week on Okra and maybe my yardlong beans, but everything else is going out. I don't plant corn because I don't want to "reel in" the deer. Happy gardening today.

I ended up planting my squash and cucumbers in pots this year, so far the ground has been too cold to bring any up I planted in the ground a few weeks ago.

I hope I will be able to get the seeds to pop up then transplant into the garden.

Hi Carol,

Well, I was more or less speaking for at least the southern half of the state, but I really do think the whole state should be OK. (Not that "my" forecast comes with a money-back guarantee or anything.) LOL

The way the weather has been this year, we're all kinda gun-shy about planting even still. I came inside for lunch because we're getting some rain sprinkles. I've been planting some figleaf hollyhocks and Laura Bush petunias in the mixed border by my front and side porch, and some elephant ears as well. This afternoon, if the rain sprinkles allow, it is back to the garden to plant peppers.

I hope to get corn, squash, pumpkins and beans in the ground in the next couple of days, and after that, then I'll do my really warm season crops (okra, melons, black-eyed peas, and sweet potatoes) either late this week or early next week. This has got to be the latest I've ever finished planting. Even last year, I had stuff in the ground so that the heavy rains could drown it and kill it. This year, I can't even get it all in the ground.

Kirts,

I'm going to start my squash and pumpkins inside in paper cups today and transplant them outside in a few days just as soon as their little heads pop up out of the soil, assuming it is raining or snowing or something. This definitely has not been a year where a gardener could plant early (or even on time!) and have much success.

And, y'all, while I was typing this, the sprinkles turned into a full-fledged rain shower, so my day in the garden may have ended earlier than I'd hoped. Oh, well, at least the garden and the stuff I planted yesterday and today are getting a good soaking.

Dawn

Dawn,

After last summer (or lack of) I told my wife I would never complain again about the heat. No matter how bad you guys might think it is, I'll be doing the happy dance. :-) A nice hot summer is one thing I don't want to do without. Well, I could pass on winter altogether.

randy

Randy,

OK, I 'sort of' agree with you. I missed summer last year too. Well, actually, the rain stopped here in mid-summer and we did have a month or two of hot, dry weather, but almost every one else in Oklahoma did not.

Dawn

lucky you, rain.. We need a little bit of it for the ground.. just an 1/2 inch would do nicely. :)

Well, we were out of town all weekend, and went ahead and braved it and left everything outside.

As of 7am, everything looked just fine, thankfully!

I'll take a closer look when I get home tonight, but I hope my eyes did not deceive me this morning!

Kirts,

Guess what? We got right at 1/2" of rain, which is also exactly the amount of rain we got last time it rained too. Apparently, here in southern OK, we are only "allowed" to receive 1/2" of rain at a time. LOL

If you didn't get any rain today, maybe you will tomorrow or later in the week. It looks like it is going to be raining on and off every day through about Thursday. I think Wednesday it is supposed to be very heavy rain and possibly severe.

DH called in mid-afternoon from his business trip to Maryland and said he heard we had wicked weather and wanted to know if we were OK. I told him that he'd been misinformed and that we were having only the mildest, most gently falling rain. I don't know who got wicked weather (maybe south or southeastern Texas?), but we didn't.

Even though it ruint my planting plans, I am so glad the rain fell.

Dawn

I concur with Dawn - I think we've seen the last of the "frost" or "freezes". Take that with a grain of salt.

I planted more milkweed seeds today (the tropical), got all of my plants either planted or potted up, and now only have the maters to go. I know, I know, I'm really late, but I want to devote some time to amending an area for them.

No rain here and we really need it. I've had to get out and water some of my guzzlers, I'm afraid I may have to declare bankruptcy just based on my water bill alone.

Susan

Well we did get a few things done today but not as much as I would have liked. I replaced a couple of tomato plants and planted four more in the garden and four more in pots. One of the ones I replaced had a lot of little holes in the leaves and when I dug down there were a lot of ants. I have plenty of replacements left so there was no need to let a weak one take up space. My container plants look really good but the ones in the garden are so-so.

Showers are supposed to start tonight and it looks pretty rainy for most of the week. I talked to several people at Church yesterday and some people have nothing in the ground yet because it is too wet at their house. The only people that seem to be on target are those that do container gardening. I think I am doing better than most. Of course, now it looks like I am finished for the week. I am leaning toward starting things in cups that I would normally direct sow outside. At least it would be up by the time I can work in my garden again.