Angelique, sleeping bags are not overkill, just overworked, LOL! As long as you remove them at about 9:00 am The whole nine yard's frosted over, I mean mine yards front and back. 28 deg F in the air (my trusty thermometer) and for the sake of sanity, the surface of the lawn grass is 23 deg F (I know, should have used IR thermometer for surfaces). Will be removing the camping tarps that I hurriedly placed over my bananas, half of my pluot, and three and 2/3 (not enough to cover the 4th one) citrus trees late last night. Was sad it was not so breezy, so the frost was widespread, was very glad it was not so breezy so the tarps stayed put. Yehehay! The lowest to come are 34 deg F, sometime during the weekend. I hope this early morning was the worst, a warming trend is in the forecast by NWS.

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

My fingers are crossed for all of you who had plants in danger last night. The people I feel sorry for? Those in the 14 counties who abruptly had a Freeze Warning issued at 3:34 a.m. this morning. Imagine their surprise when they wake up this morning to a Freeze Warning that didn't exist when they went to bed last night. Generally, if I have warm-season veggie plants in the ground and our forecast low is for anything below 40, I cover up the plants out of an abundance of caution. Did that last night for the tomatoes and beans, but not for the volunteer squash plants, zinnias, etc. Covering up cool-season plants is trickier---harder to decide when/if to do it and I base the decision largely on how warm we've been lately. The cool-season plants seem to suffer from late cold the most if we've been really 'hot' (hot for them) and they're pushing out a lot of new growth, more so than if we've been chilly. Lately we've had lots of days in the 70s and 80s so the cool-season crops are indeed putting out tons of new foliage as they grow rapidly, so that's why I'll cover them on Tuesday. Actually, I'll put the row cover in the garden today, in the pathways to the north of each bed, and will zip tie it to the hoops for each bed to keep it from blowing away in Tuesday's winds. Then, late on Tuesday afternoon, I just have to pull the row cover up over the hoops and secure the southern edges. With winds forecast to be gusting in the 30s tomorrow, it would be foolish of me to wait until Tuesday to carry out the row cover for the four beds of cool-season crops and try to roll it out in that wind. On our next cold night, when we're currently forecast to go to 35 degrees (Tuesday night into Wed morning), I'll probably cover up everything, and maybe even the asparagus though I think it wouldn't be strictly necessary. Our low-lying microclimate (a creek hollow in the already low-lying Red River valley) means we tend to go colder than forecast more often than we stay warmer than forecast. When they say 35 degrees, my brain thinks 31 based on past history. Last night was the first night I've covered up anything this year, except for throwing a few handfuls of autumn leaves over a couple of pineapple sage volunteer seedlings on the last night that we had freezing temperatures here---so maybe two weeks ago. I was hoping to make it through the Spring without using the row covers at all, but from the day I planted tomato plants and sowed bean seeds, I knew we'd probably have to use the row covers a few times. When your weather is fluctuating form the mid-80s to the mid-30s, you have to be prepared for anything.

I'm in north east Ohio - it looks like it will dip down to about freezing right before dawn and then become a sunny cool day tomorrow. With the weather being warm for so long my house will probably retain and radiate enough heat to keep the immediate area frost free. It will be frosty white on the lawn and field away from my house. Or I could be wrong and everything will be frozen solid tomorrow morn - I'm not too worried although nothing tender will be left outside tonight just in case!