Thanks, Dawn! Very informative link. Scared me bad enough I went out and picked the last of the jalepenos & pablanos. I thought the bells were done but I found a couple more of them. Don't you know I looked like a dork out there in my warm boots and sweatshirt?!? LOL

Yes, it seems too early! But we can't control Mother Nature. I even had to break down this evening and turn on the heat. It was 63 in my house when I got home.

Thanks for warning us!

Paula

Hi Paula,

I know that Ilene has mentioned she was expecting very cold nights this weekend in her corner of OK (northeastern) but when I went to look at the map to see how the flood watches and warnings were going--ooops, there is was for NW OK.

I usually post watches and warnings if I see them in time. I'd hate to see anyone miss their chance to either cover stuff up or salvage what they can because they missed the weather news on any given day.

I've been surprised a couple of times by unexpected freezes and it is the worst thing in the world to stand looking at black or brown mushy freeze-damaged peppers or tomatoes that could have been picked the night before if only you'd known what "might" happen.

I think warm boots and a sweatshirt sound divine. I haven't had to pull out the boots yet, but I've worn sweatshirts a couple of days this week, including today.

The only good thing about an "early fall cooldown" this year means there's less chance of having one next year, statistically speaking. Soon our veggie garden year will be mostly ended and we can get on with making our plans and dreaming our dreams of even better gardens next year.

I'm already longing for some sunlight. It's been a long, dreary, cloudy week.

Dawn

I think I will be either harvesting or covering tomorrow. I brought in most of the peppers earlier and chopped them into cooking size pieces today and stuffed all I could get into two quart freezer bags. I saved back what I think I will need in the next few days. I probably have a quart or more of spicey ones to do tomorrow. Yesterday I put green beans in the freezer and I am hoping that I have one more picking tomorrow. Lots of little ones still on the vines.

The squash are still in place and I will have to decide that matter tomorrow. I may just try to pull all the vines into one big pile and try to cover them up. That will depend on what the forecast is for several days not just tomorrow night. It may not be worth the time.

My cowpeas have peas on them but they are the skiniest pods I have ever seen. I can see little bumps where seeds are forming, but they are so skinny. I guess I will pick them anyway and see if they are any good. We just had a month of cool weather when I expected a month of hot weather so they didn't have much of a chance.

I don't think I will bother with the tomatoes. We like fried green tomatoes anyway. I'll finish cleaning the pepper vines and use those mini-peppers to cook with.

That leaves lettuce and all of the cole crops (brussel sprouts, broccoli and cabbage). Do you think they need protection?

I finally found a copy of Urban Farm tonight. I had looked several places and hadn't found it, but Atwoods had them.

We drove to Vinita tonight and the pecan orchard near Vinita is flooded. Most places I could only see about 14-16 inches of the fence posts so the crop will most assuredly be hurt. Most of our area got 6 inches of rain yesterday. The lake is high, but will probably be going MUCH higher with all of the heavy rains north of us yesterday. We have seen it much higher that it is now.

Hi Carol,

You know, if only the sun would actually come out and shine for a couple of days, your cowpeas probably would do just fine. Mine have been producing slowly but steadily despite all the clouds and cold nights. However, their quality really deteriorated this last week and I yanked them out mid-week after picking one last mess of peas....those were the plants that had been producing since July, so maybe they ran out of energy and couldn't overcome the lack of heat and sunshine.

Our weather here looks good for at least another week, so I expect to see my tiny beans grow to a decent size in the next few days. I hope they do....I don't have nearly enough in the freezer. If yours could just get some sunlight, I think they'd grow pretty quickly. Too many clouds!

I wouldn't cover cool-season crops if you're only expecting the low 30s or upper 20s. If it is plunging to the mid-20s, I'd probably cover them to be safe. How much cold they can handle varies, depending on whether they've been able to gradually acclimate to lower temperatures or not. A big steep plunge in temps hurts them more than a gradual cooldown over a longer period of time.

The tomatoes I'm getting lately are only OK--but still better than store tomatoes. Oddly, the small bite-sized ones taste the same. The larger ones (maybe because they are slower to mature?) have had a noticeable decrease in flavor and texture since it turned so cool and rainy. I'm about ready to 'let go' of them. I doubt I'll even cover them up when the first frost happens here. I have tons of them in the freezer as tomato puree and stewed tomatoes, and bags and bags of dehydrated ones, and also a lot of them in the cellar canned as salsa or tomato sauce, so we'll still have home-grown tomatoes in one form or another all winter...just not fresh from the vine.

I noticed Urban Farm sold out quickly at the stores that had it here. I guess that is a good sign for the publishers. I really enjoyed the first issue and look forward to seeing what they do with the next issue.

Poor pecan orchards. The ones here in the river bottomlands stood in water quite a long time last May after the heavy April rainfall and subsequent heavy rains in May. I know they can handle the standing water for quite a while, but I cannot imagine it is good for this year's crop (if the trees have a crop this year).

Six inches is a lot--that's twice what we had here, and I thought we had "plenty". Our big pond did catch a lot of runoff so that's a good thing.

The best news is that we are supposed to have sunshine here this weekend. I hope they are right about that!

Dawn

I've got my hot peppers covered with visqueen and hope that is enough. In the previous years I panicked and after the "freeze" we ended up having good weather for a few more weeks and I was sorry I pulled everything. Do you think I ought to pick all my green tomatoes? Last night I found a salsa recipe using green tomatoes (not tomatillos) and am going to try it this afternoon when I get off work. I picked all the eggplant and probably need to pull the lima beans too. It's such a shame because they are really putting on. Right now my garden is doing what it should have back in May. Well next year....But what do yall think I should do with the tomatoes? Will this frost hurt them that bad? I'm in Alfalfa County

Hi River,

You know, I cannot make that decision for you, but if it were me, I am inclined to say that--based on the forecast for Helena (assuming you still live there)--I'd go ahead and pick everything....and here's why.

The NWS is forecasting 34 degrees for the Helena area tonight. If the sky is clear (temps often drop lower than forecast on clear nights and frost forms more easily) and there is no wind (wind can protect plants from frost), then anyone can have frost at 38 degrees, which has happened a lot at my house in recent years. So, knowing frost can form at temps as high as 38 and knowing they are saying 34, I wouldn't take that chance.

Also, if you look at the blue area on the county map (bottom of page) on the NWS page linked below, you'll see they are forecasting very cold weather (RECORD LOW TEMPS) for NW OK tonight/tomorrow morning just a couple of counties west of you, and often that forecast will change during the day to include other nearby counties if they see things changing. Having a Freeze Watch that close to you, and a Freeze Warning just west of it is pretty serious for early October.

So, I guess my answer is that I'd pick the peppers and tomatoes unless I was absolutely, positively sure I could cover them up well enough to protect them from a freeze and a frost.

If you want to leave them alone (and, believe me, I have done this plenty of times....played the odds that I could successfully protect them by covering them), then consider doing the following.

As soon as you get home from work and can get out to the garden, fill up buckets or jugs or whatever you have (I usually use 5-gallon buckets or cat litter buckets) with the warmest water you can manage. Set the buckets of warm water as close to your plants as possible and cover all of it with the visqueen. Keep in mind, though, that any part of the plant that touches the visqueen is going to freeze, although most of the plant may survive. So, if you have peppers or tomatoes on the upper or outer edges of the plants, pick those before you put the visqueen over them. You also can use a string of Christmas lights to provide a little heat under the visqueen.

I generally pick all my peppers and tomatoes when our forecast says it will go below 40 degrees because in my low-lying area, we almost always go colder than they say....once we went 18 degrees colder....they said 50 and we went to 32 and I lost everything.....so I actually am 'pushing it' when I leave plants in at 40 or higher.

Most years, we get a good month of "Indian Summer" after that first cold night, but it only helps us if we can get our plants through that first cold night and I am really concerned about tonight's cold temps. To see the term "Record Cold" on a NWS forecast for this early in October is a very bad sign and I think all we gardeners need to be concerned about tonight's cold.

Are you going to dig up any pepper plants and overwinter them inside? If so, this evening is the time to dig!

My uncle pulls up his pepper plants and hangs them upside down in an insulated barn and picks good peppers for weeks after. I've done the same with tomatoes and some peppers, using my tornado shelter instead of our barn. You're one zone colder than me though, and two zones colder than my uncle, so even an insulated barn or garage might not stay warm enough at night for the pepper plants.

Check out your county's forecast on the link below, and keep an eye on the warning for the counties west of you to see if it gets extended to y'all sometime today.

Good luck....I hope you'll let us know what you decide and if it worked.

By the way, it is colder here right now at our house near Marietta than they said it would be...and that is making me nervous about my uncovered plants.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: NWS Enchanced Page

I refuse, simply refuse to allow any freezes anywhere in the state this early. If it's in the NW, that means it'll be here in the SE before much longer. And I'm not mentally prepared for it.

Nope, sorry, I refuse. ;-P

Diane

Diane,

I don't necessarily think it will happen here either, but in 1999 it happened on Sept. 30th, although we saved one row of tomatoes by hastily constructing a crude hoophouse over them a couple of hours before sunset. That year, though, the weather was warmer and sunnier than it has been this year, so keeping them going another month meant we harvested oodles more. This cool and cloudy year, I don't think it would be worth it to bother covering them up.

And, no, I'm not ready for it either. I think my garden is OK for tonight, and yours should be...but I don't know that it will last much longer.

Dawn

I picked the last of the peppers, a few summer squash, a few cowpeas although they were too small. I picked all of the butternut squash although they could have used another week. The spaghetti squash just looked too immature so I pulled the vines over so the three largest ones were near each other and I will cover that area tonight.

I picked enough green beans to feed us a couple of meals and considered it my last chance because I don't plan to do anything to protect them. I felt a little sad as I looked at all of the small beans and blooms still on the plants and knowing that they will not have a chance to produce. Then I thanked my Heavenly Father for allowing me to understand the law of the harvest and to be a part of it. Just reminded me that I witness miracles ever day.

Although I got a late start with my garden this year it still brought me joy, maybe more so than ever before. We ate out of it for many months and still have a few things in the freezer to enjoy. I have a raised bed of salad greens planted but most are still very small since this cold came earlier than I was expecting. My broccoli is not looking very good, but the brussel sprouts and cabbage still look healthy if they can just grow a little more before the "really" cold weather moves in. I only planted it for the fresh veggies, so anything that had a surplus and got put in jars or in the freezer was a bonus. I think I did 8 bags of green beans, 2 quart bags of peppers (with one or two more to do), and canned about 11 jars of pickled squash. I also put corn in the freezer but I didn't grow it. Now I need to decide what to do with the bag of butternut squash that may not be quite mature enough to store. I'll think I will just wipe off the dirt and let it rest for a few days to see what happens.

I'm off to cover the last few squash.

Carol,

So....all that for nothing....we stayed warm and our garden lives, and so does yours, right? (It looks great on the mesonet!)

It went to 42 at Burneyville and 39 here. We had a heavy dew with little tiny droplets off what felt like ice mixed in. I know, because I bent over and touched the dew on the grass.....but the garden showed no damage when I checked it around 7:45 a.m.

I assume your spaghetti squash and my winter squash will have a chance to mature now since the rest of the week looks good.

My garden brought me a great deal of joy, and the weather brought a great deal of frustration too.

At times, keeping up with putting up the harvest was impossibly difficult, but I know this winter I'll be grateful I spent all the time canning and dehydrating and freezing the harvest because we'll be able to enjoy it for many months.

With any luck at all, your garden and mine will go on producing for a few more weeks.....if the weather cooperates.

I don't know if many others here will be so lucky.

Dawn

The mesonet says that Jay went to 33 so I could have been in trouble. Traditional we are a little later than most of the towns around us and I have always thought it was the warmth of the water from the lake, but I don't know for sure. I talked to a gardener from Vinita this morning and he didn't get a killing freeze there either.

Sometimes people in other parts of Oklahoma don't quite realize how far north Grove really is. If we go directly east from my house we are in Missouri. Ilene always says she lives in Oklahoma, almost Kansas. I live in Oklahoma, almost Missouri. LOL

Anyway, I would love to see my spaghetti squash get to stay on the vein and mature, but I don't think that is going to happen. It looks like I could pick a few more beans this week tho, because it is supposed to be warm for a few more days.

Oops, make that vine, not vein. LOL

Maybe you're in a warmer microclimate because of the lake. I've always heard that gardens beside a lake or large pond stay warmer at night because the large body of water functions as a solar collector.

It was ridiculously cold at Jay's and I'm glad y'all weren't as cold. The 39 degrees on the backyard thermometer concerned me, but the garden was fine.

I think maybe your squash will mature. I've had some mature even after a light frost hit the leaves (I had pulled the vines (veins LOL) up over the squash and the leaves froze but they kept the frost off the squash that time which gave the squash about 3 more weeks to mature before the next frost.

So, Ilene is almost in Kansas, you are almost in Missouri and I am almost in Texas. We're scattered all over the place.

Temperature-wise, our week looks great, but there's a chance of rain almost every day and I am afraid that means lots of clouds and little sun. It is hard to imagine much of anything maturing on the plants if there isn't any direct sunlight.

Dawn