Thursday 1 May 2014

Frost Precautions

Wednesday was a disappointing end to the month as we expected the dull morning weather to brighten up giving us some warm afternoon sunshine. On Wednesday however it remained dull all day with a little rain early in the evening.

We cleared a couple more beds on the plot but as colder weather with the possibility of early morning frosts is forecast I thought I'd cover our young potato shoots with some straw to give them a little bit of protection against the cold.
A few cold nights are going to give our plants a bit of a shock as they will have become accustomed to much milder temperature. We've had quite a run of mild nights with the temperature not falling much below 8°C. Since the 21st of the April night time temperatures have varied between 9.3°C and 7.8°C so a frost will be most unwelcome.

I'll be making sure our greenhouse tomato plants have a couple of layers of fleece over them as protection. The forecast at the moment is for sunny days following any frosty mornings so greenhouse temperatures should warm up quickly in the sunshine and our tomato plants won’t get too much of a check.
Our peppers are still growing happily cosseted under our indoor growlight. I think I'll wait now until next week before transplanting these into pots and moving them into the cold greenhouse. I don't think they'll suffer from becoming too leggy by next week and hopefully they'll avoid the worst of the cold nights.

4 comments:

  1. Oh no, not a frost ! That's not fair ! The temperature in my greenhouse has been min 9 degrees over the last few weeks, so my poor little plants won't want a big shock tonight. Had better check our forecast as we are only about an hour away from you. Hope you keep all your babies cuddled up and safe !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jane
      Don't know what to make of the forecasts over the weekend. Some say it's going to be a sunny weekend including Bank Holiday Monday - others that after Saturday it will be cloudy.

      A frost seems to be most likely in the early hours of Saturday morning but if it stays sunny rather than cloudy more frosts may follow. Who'd be a gardener!

      Delete
  2. I hope it doesn't get too cold, I don't have any backup plans!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nor do I. The forecast seems to be forecasting slightly milder temperatures now than a few days ago so I'm hoping no frosts.

      Delete

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