Fenton Friday: Frost Coming, No Body Panic

'Sun Gold' tomatoes

As you have likely seen in my last blog post, we have a frost/freeze warning for the region this weekend. That means will soon be draining the cistern at the Fenton Community Garden, so I went over today and filled up over a dozen kitty litter and milk gallon containers to have water on stand-by over the long winter as I hate lugging it from home.

My tomatoes, especially 'Sun Gold' apparently love these cool nights as the plants have taken off like crazy and are crowding out my pathways and I picked over 30 ripe tomatoes today and had harvested another couple dozen earlier this week. All those that were split or green I left behind. We shall see if the forecasts are correct, but until they actually get frost-bitten, I'm leaving the tomatoes and other summer crops in the ground.

In related news, garden writer Julie Bawden-Davis wrote up a piece on community gardening for Parade online. Read it here. I supplied here with a few quotes about my experiences as a childhood community gardener and more recently at the Fenton Community Garden. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about other garden writer's experiences as well. And now I know where C.L. Fornari gets all her energy -- it is all those fresh-grown veggies!

Giving Tender Plants Extra Frost/Freeze Protection

“Bundle up,” your mom always advised you when you went out to play in the frigid winds. The same advice applies for your tender and newer outdoor plantings. The freezing northern winds and freezing nighttime temps can damage or kill those annuals, perennials, shrubs, and trees that are more marginal in our Mid-Atlantic planting zones. If a plant is classified as hardy only to zone 8 or above, than it is wise to take a few minutes to evaluate it for frost/freeze protection needs. Here are the top methods to give your plantings a bit of warmth and relief during any freeze/frost alerts:

• Take it indoors. You may not have a greenhouse, but you probably have a garage, cellar, or protected porch. Sometimes all your potted tender plant needs is a sheltered spot for those worst weeks of the year. You can also wrap a blanket or burlap around the base of the pot to keep it insulated. Alternatively, group a bunch of pots together and stuff the area with leaves.
• Plant it right. The warmest part of your yard is most likely at the base of a southern-facing wall. This is the spot to plant your camellias, figs, and others in your zonal edge.
• Mulch it. Pile up mulch around the base of the plant to give its root-zone a nice blanket of warmth. Grafted trees and shrubs especially are vulnerable to die-back, so give an extra mulching to your fruit trees and rose bushes now. Be sure to pull pack that mulch layer at the first signs of spring.
• Cover it. If you have just a few small tender plants to cover or want to give an early start to next season, use a cloche or glass bell. (An assortment of Colonial era cloches is pictured here.). You can make a modern cloche out of plastic soda bottles or milk jugs. Be sure to take them off or vent them during the day. To vent them, you can prop them up with a small stick or on stones.
  
• Blanket it. Watch the local weather closely and on the coldest nights of the year, have cover cloths or old blankets/sheets on the ready to throw over your plants. This is a good precaution to take on nights with an ice warning. Many plants that are solid Zone 6 and 7 can still suffer severe frost damage and breakage, so go ahead and cover them when an ice storm is predicted. Then uncover when the danger of icing has passed.
• Insulate it. Surround your most vulnerable plants with a metal cage (like your old tomato cages) or plastic mesh and stuff the frame full of leaves. You can also wrap the plant burlap tied with twine to achieve the same purpose. Then unwrap and un-stuff your plant in early spring.

Finally, if you find you have a real cold spot in your garden that is a frigid micro-climate, consider more long-term solutions for this spot... 

See the rest of the article in the Washington Gardener November 2011 issue posted here: http://washingtongardener.blogspot.com/2011/11/giving-your-tender-plants-winter.html

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Video Wednesday: Unexpected Frost

I always advise local gardeners that Mother's Day is the all-clear date for planting tender annuals and that was true forthe past 100 years or so. This year, Mother Nature had other ideas. Parts of the Washington, DC region fell to 32 degrees on Monday night and many gardeners scrambled to cover up newly planted or purchased tomatoes, peppers, etc.

Here, one local gardener, Gary Pilarchik in Maryland, shares his experiences in trying to protect his plants during the cold snap: