FWIW, I'm still seeing nights dip into mid40s even with highs in the 90s. Other than a bit of leaf curl, the plants are still fine. Thursday's low is supposed to get down to 43.Friday and Saturday to 41. I might cover a few of my favorite peppers, but I'm not all that worried. Plants are tougher than they look.

"Because we gardeners tend to get obsessed with beating Mother Nature? :-)"

That's really what it's all about, isn't it? Bugs, disease, weather. But we will triumph and be rewarded.

thanks for the support, but these things really delay production. In September it is the same, one night like that and all toms, loaded with green ones, step on the brakes.

I have always wondered why fried green tomatoes, which are wonderful, are mainly a popular dish in the south, where we tend not to be left with many of them. Same for collards which, while a traditional southern vegetable, really grows better in cool weather.

glib, I get it. I just chuckle when people talk about plants needing nights in the 60s. I have very few nights in the entire summer when the low stays above 60. Of course, this is why if I want a decent crop of eggplant or melons, they need to spend quite a bit of time under row cover fabric to trap the heat and why I give myself a back ache filling up wall-o-waters for the tomatoes. I hope it warms up a bit more for you again soon.

Sustained 20mph winds and 27mph gusts at 46 to 52 degrees all night and day here. My pepper plants looks like they've given up and would rather be compost than live a full life.

i should have gotten row covers.

Dan, collards are grown in the fall and winter in the south. Yum, the best farmers won't even harvest a crop for sale until after a couple of hard freezes.

Well, I know. I grow them. But it just surprises me that a plant that would grow most of the year up north is not traditional up there. Collards just laugh at hard freezes. There are a mess of months down here that you wouldn't be caught dead trying to grow collards. And yes, to the extent the best farmers won't even harvest a crop for sale until after a couple of hard freezes, it's kind of surprising that anyone harvests collards at all down here, because we don't often even have hard freezes.

I am told that although collards are not traditional in the north, they are much more commonly available there than they used to be. So those northerners are wising up, I guess.

collards are popular up here now due to their reputation as a health food.

that, (the health food aspect), plus they are the best performer under cover in winter in the North. I grow 72 per year (2 beds), my collaborators may eat 20, but for sure we eat 50 collards a year. It is our main winter vegetable, covering mid-december to mid-march. You can pick them solid frozen, bring them inside, when they thaw you would never be able to tell (except for the older leaves that get discarded anyway). You can go in the hoop houses and pick several, they will stay fresh in the fridge inside a garbage bag for 2 weeks. Really, in the North collards are a treasure. And they grow big in my shadier beds too, using a part of the garden that would be underutilized (I rotate them with radicchio and cardoon).

"why do I even bother with warm season crops?"

Because the reward is worth the risk... and because it will soon be too hot for cool season crops. ;-) I grow both runner beans & limas each year, knowing that at least one of them will succeed regardless of the temperature.

That being said, there are frost warnings tonight for northern Wisconsin, and it is pretty late in the season for that. No frost expected in my area, but most of my plants are still in the greenhouse anyway, waiting for my garden to dry out enough to transplant them.

Come to think of it, I guess my question would be... why do I even bother with dry season crops. ;-)