Welcome to Ohio where it can be 70 degrees and sunny one day and I don't know if you can see
this but snowing and 30 degrees the next now as you can imagine this does pose some challenges for
early season gardening we truly did go from being in the 60s to their calling for a low tonight of
21 degrees and I've got stuff out in the garden already I'm sure a lot of you are in the same boat
and might be a little bit scared about what's going to happen to your seedlings so i thought i
would share with you today some information about just how cold tolerant some of your early season
vegetables are as well as easy ways to protect your seedlings now there are a couple factors that
you want to consider when trying to decide how much cold your plants are going to be able to take
unfortunately with annual vegetables in particular it's not always quite as easy as just looking at
that forecasted low temperature you have to take into consideration first things like humidity
whether there is rainfall in the forecast and whether those plants happen to already have a
snow cover on them because all of those are going to affect the amount of cold they can tolerate
the next very important thing is if your plants have been acclimated to the cold so I have a row
of collards out here that have been out here since last October one or two or three nights dipping to
the low 20s is not going to phase them but if i took a flat of seedling collards out of my warm
snug greenhouse transplanted them today and then the nighttime temperature drops to 20 degrees
they're going to be done for the third thing to consider is that even within certain vegetable
categories there are varieties that are more cold tolerant than others so you can have lettuces that
are 10 to 15 degrees more cold tolerant than other varieties so that's just something to
incorporate into your planning if you are planting out a very early or late season
garden now that being said you can make some general assumptions about the temperatures
that your plants will be able to tolerate so if we're talking about temperatures in the 20s
and these are plants that are unprotected things like cauliflower and annual bulb fennel can
tolerate the upper 20s with no protection when we drop to the mid-20s the above ground parts so the
stems and the leaves of rhubarb will be killed off and peas will survive it though you will
see some frost damage on the foliage dropping down into the low 20s and sometimes even the teens
depending on the variety we're looking at things like leafy greens root crops and brassicas so for
your leafy greens that's things like arugula chard spinach collards mustard lettuce kale cilantro
parsley endive and mosh root crops include things like carrots onions garlic rutabaga
turnip radish and beets potatoes also with potatoes you'll typically see the the tops
will frost kill but they will sprout up new growth when the temperature is warm again and then with
brassicas you're looking at things like kohlrabi cabbage and broccoli and again there may be damage
to the outer leaves of the foliage but the plants will bounce back and continue to grow just fine
the first and easiest way to protect tiny seedlings that have just emerged
from the ground is to mulch them with you can use something like straw or leaf mulch
and that will give them just enough insulation to make it through the freezing temperatures you just
want to be sure to pull that mulch back after the temperature is warm again if you have individual
plants to protect an easy way to do this is to use cloches you can also use buckets or big pots
or clear plastic jugs whatever you have that will fit over that plant and give a little insulation
you'll just want to weight it down if there's a chance that the wind may blow it away another
option which is one of my personal favorites are these expandable all-in-one row cover protectors
and basically they've got the wire hoops already sewn into either like a fabric row cover or you
can get plastic covers as well and these are super easy especially if you have things planted in rows
because they just expand to fit your whole row you push them down into the ground and you're done
and a final option is to use fabric row covers to protect your plants you can also use old
sheets in much the same way with the idea being that you're just putting a barrier between those
freezing temperatures and your plants now ideally you'll want a little bit of air space between
the top of your plants and that fabric cover which is why supporting them with hoops or anything
that's going to hold that fabric up off the plants is a good idea and then the other thing is just
making sure you've got the fabric well secured to the ground so that the wind is not coming and
just taking off with them and for this you can use fabric pins rocks boards whatever is going
to be heavy enough to keep that fabric secure so get out and give those seedlings some protection
if you need to depending on how cold it's going to get in your area and let's just keep hoping
for that warm spring weather to come back and if you find content like this helpful please consider
subscribing to my channel growfully with jenna thanks for watching and i'll see you next time