Like Evan will be moving alot of tomatos inside a unheated garage tonight. Thinking like over 200 pots of them. Sheeze thougth we abuout safe by now. Have a few tomatoes in the ground so will put some blankets over the covers. The frost on 4/16/17 really took out alot of my seedlings. So all the tender stuff gets moved tonight. Guess every one wishes they had lots of Remay to cover with.

It was very cold here and we had a very hard frost....the kind that looks like white snow on the grass. It was 34 degrees here at 2:00 a.m., and I didn't check the temperatures any more after that because I knew it was going to be worse than expected.....and, at that point, the only issue was how much worse than expected. (G.M., When I saw our temps. at 2 a.m., I checked Carter County's on the internet and y'all were showing 38 degrees at that point, so I'm betting y'all ultimately went down to at least 34 to 36.) Pretty much everything in the garden survived and most were not damaged. I have two tomato plants that probably won't make it, but that's not bad considering I had 58 in the ground. There's about another 10 that show some damage. I probably could leave them alone and they'd bounce back, but I might replace them anyway. I have back-up plants to replace them with, so it isn't a big deal. The damage to the tomatoes was hit or miss, and might have been worse on those whose flower pot/bucket was smaller or more lightweight than those on the other plants. Everything else tender was in the house, the garage or the screened-in back porch so they all are fine. All the perennials are fine. The roses that were blooming look fine. The iris flowers look kind of pitiful. The water lilies are unharmed. Depending on how cold it actually got, and how long it stayed there, the fruit on the fruit trees may not survive. We have one more cold night tonight here in southern OK, with "patchy frost" expected. If you believe the data from the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, the "average" last frost in Love County occurs in the March 22 thru March 31st timeframe. However, we ALWAYS have at least one freezing night significantly later than that, and usually more than one. Here's the last frost date for the years we've lived here: 2007: 32 degrees on 4-15-07 2006: 23 degrees on 4-23-06 2005: 32 degrees on 4-24-05 2004: 32 degrees on 3-31-04 2003: 28 degrees on 4-10-03 2002: 27 degrees on 4-05-02 2001: 32 degrees on 4-24-01 2000: 31 degrees on 4-17-00 1999: 31 degrees on 4-18-99 So, the OCS data doesn't seem reliable for us, but it is based on 30-year averages, and we've only been here and watching the weather here for 9 years. One frustrating thing about the "late" freezes is that, even though they predictably occur in mid- to late-April, they often follow anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks where we've had really nice warm weather and only a couple of cold nights. Randy, I think your wind will be worse than ours. We're only expecting winds of 15 to 25, which seems mild compared to the last few days. It is relatively wind-free here today, and that is nice. Kirts, I hope your ground dries up soon so you can rototill and prepare to plant. We have another round of rain forecast beginning around Thursday. I hope to get the rest of the veggie garden planted this week, except for the real heat lovers like okra and melons. My soil is still pretty wet just a couple of inches below the soil surface, but it is getting better every day. Dawn

Karen, glad to hear how well your garden faired! Even though I harvested most everything on Monday, I hadn't even been out to the garden to see how the plants had done, as one of my sons ended up in the hospital for a couple of days. He's home and much better now, so I took a look around, and even though the official low for Monday was 34º, the cucumber plants were pretty much toast, and there were a couple of basil plants that I missed, that had some frost damage, but the tomato and pepper plants looked fine. I guess I could have pulled out the row cover, but I wasn't sure it was big enough to cover everything, since the tomato plants are over 6' tall. Maybe I'll go that route next year ... Anyway, I've sliced and froze about 80% of the peppers, which made about 2 gallons worth. I was thinking about pickling the mild jalapenos that are left. Anyone else pickle peppers? If so, I'd love to have the recipe. Or is there something else I can do with them, other than freeze them? The last of the basil is in the dehydrator right now, which should be enough to last 2 or 3 months anyway. Plus, there's probably 3 pints worth of pesto in little 1/2 cup portions in the freezer. But I sure am going to miss my fresh tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwiches though : ( Bonnie

Our temps were lower than predicted (grrr) and the covering I used wasn't enough for 27 degrees. I have two Husky Cherry Reds which were about 9" tall and have now lost their leaves. The lower stems are still green. I'll keep watering them and see what happens next. Lost most of the leaves on the figs (right next to the house), all the new growth on the spring-flowering camellia (right next to the house), all the new growth on the dwarf Burford hollies on the side away from the house, much of the new growth on the inkberries I planted last fall, and most of the (very new) leaves on the young walnut trees. Of course this is NOTHING compared to the infamous 2007 freeze. So far the apples and cherries (which had already flowered and set fruit) seem okay. The two podocarpus (which some people say shouldn't even be grown in anything colder than zone 8) are just fine -- even the new growth. Go figure.