Garden Frost Protection - Does Frost Cloth Work? Results After Freeze

We had an early frost and freeze this year. Over the course of one week, we saw a low of 34F, 33F and 29F with strong, gusty winds during the hard freeze. I used frost blankets and frost cloth to protect my plants. This video shows the results of the protection methods after the cold snap.
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© The Millennial Gardener

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Follow Me on TWITTER twitter.com/NCGardening Follow Me on INSTAGRAM instagram.com/millennialgardener_nc/

[@Bgbaby75]

Thank you so much for your professional and thorough frost and plant freeze advise!!!! I learned so much just by watching your video! Thank you!!!!

[@jahmereyoung6000]

Being sick of our crops is such a 1st world problem. I love it 🇺🇸

[@xXTheLigitGamersXx]

Temp hit -1 degrees Fahrenheit in Texas a few months ago. Killed everything. I hope it never gets that cold again, I have most of my plants in pots Incase to bring them inside.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

That was a 100 year event, maybe a 500 year event. Hopefully, it won't happen for another 100-500 years.

[@alicia-lr6635]

@@TheMillennialGardener I'm in Texas too... and we can hardly call this a 100 yr event at this point. 2 weeks ago, we finally finished clearing out all of the dead branches from the last winter storm... and now we're looking at the same plants being frozen to death all over again. 🤦‍♀️ We've done what we can, but it'll be a miracle if they survive this windy freeze. 🙏 Prayers for all the people without power.

[@texgal4928]

Figs, amazing! Great job! I'm going to have to review your fig videos because I absolutely love the fruit but have no room for such large trees. I'm very interested in how you're keeping them small. Great job dealing with the frost!

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Potted trees cannot "outgrow their container," so the short answer is, the smaller the container you grow them in, the smaller the roots will be, the smaller the tree will grow. Figs need to be cut back annually, so you can also adjust seasonally and cut them down to size every year. I wouldn't go any smaller than these 5 gallon buckets, though. I think the "minimum" size should be a 10 gallon nursery pot for a permanent fig tree. Now, what you can do is buy a dwarfing variety like a Chicago Hardy, cut it back to a single trunk, let 4 stems come out of the central trunk like a goblet, then graft 4 different varieties on it. We call that a "Frankenfig." Just an idea :) Thanks for watching.

[@LaHortetadeBussy]

Thanks men for video.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Thank you for watching.

[@rauljimenez8132]

Another excellent video. My problem is that the area in my basement where I want to put my container figs is only getting to from 52° to 54° so far in Z7a, NJ (thinking about "piping in" some cold air). All my summer plants have already been through my lawn mower and into mulch for next year (lots of green tomatoes). My fig trees are just sticks with most of the leaves gone, lignified. But it looks like next week will still be warm enough to still stay outside.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Thank you. It looks to me like the next several weeks will be warm enough in NJ to leave them outside, especially if you stack them up against the south wall of your house. If I were you, I’d leave them out as long as practical. Too many fig growers bring their figs in too early. If you toss a frost blanket on them while they’re up against the house, I bet you can go even longer. That’s my plan here in Zone 8. I want to try to not even bring them inside, except maybe on our “annual minimum” night.

[@peterstevens4223]

Good evening from Auckland, New Zealand it’s Tuesday, November 19, 2019

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Thanks for watching!

[@tinkalinks]

I'm here because I wanted to see how well this planket works. I have one day of freezing temps here on long island and I need something to protect the plants that are not in the greenhouse.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

The Planket works great for frost. It will not work great for temperatures that drop below freezing because it will freeze through. You will need an internal heat source inside to provide warmth, like a couple strands of Christmas lights or a 100W light bulb or something. The exception is if you group your plants against a house or a "warm wall" so it can hold in the radiant heat. Another solution is to put things like 5 gallon water jugs under there to hold in radiant heat. But if your plants are out in the open, since plants don't generate body heat like humans do, if temps go below freezing, it'll freeze right through.

[@tinkalinks]

@@TheMillennialGardener thanks so much for responding with tips! I will try water jugs as they are not close to an electrical source.

[@Moonlight76876]

Nice video Thank's for sharing. Do you know how much frost do the blankets can handle ?

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Frost isn't really the issue. If frost is your only problem, the blankets will do great because the goal is to keep the frost off the vegetation. The problem is sub-freezing temps. I assume what you're really asking is, "How many degrees of protection do these blankets add?" If that is your question, the answer is, "That depends." That depends on how windy it is, the wind chill, whether you're able to lock in heat from a radiative source like the Earth, how warm the ground still is, etc. I had the perfect storm of "awful": incredible winds that made it impossible to lock in any of the heat from the Earth. If it's nice and calm outside and your ground is very warm, you'll have much more success than if it's a gusty evening with a strong north wind.

[@charlescoker7752]

Gardening with Leon channel says if you use more than one layer of frost protection it protects even better.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Of course, the thicker the layer of protection you put on, the better the protection will be, but you can only do what's feasible. When talking about greenhouse protection, this is true, but you need to put an air buffer between layers. You really need a structure to accomplish this.

[@stevendaniel5649]

Hey, Bubba. The temp hit 19 degrees here in North Georgia. My figs lost their leaves but the buds are still green and fat. Please announce when you start offering fig cuttings as I want to load up. Do you can or freeze your bounty?

[@ClementDupuis]

I would also be interested in cuttings.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Wow, 19 in GA so early. That would be impressive if it weren't so unpleasant. I will definitely announce when the time comes. I will be pruning in late December/early January. My trees are not dormant, yet. These trees are all babies so I didn't have nearly enough figs to store. Maybe on year 3 or 4. It'll take a few years before the production exceeds my ability to consume them. I am going to be heading all my figs over winter and planting many in-ground, so next year will probably have poor production since they'll spend all season growing roots and recovering from the heading.

[@nmnate]

So, it looks like the cloth you used to cover the peppers is at least mildly transparent. Are the heavier blankets transparent? I'm trying to figure out options for keeping cold hardy greens going through the hardest times of the year. I've been assembling some corrugated steel raised beds that I'll probably incorporate some hoops so that I can protect the plants. The beds aren't shaped to allow me to easily do cold frames.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

The Plankets are not transparent. They are much heavier than the white frost cloth. I wish I had a 3rd Planket because it may have saved more of my peppers. In my experience, peppers are more tolerant of desiccation than tomatoes. They may have survived better with a heavier cover. You can try buying 1 gallon jugs of water, painting them black with spray paint and placing them near your plants, then covering them at night. Water has a very high specific heat, so it retains heat very well (especially when the jugs are painted black) and radiates the heat very slowly and controlled. Adding passive heat through water jugs can hold a tremendous amount of heat. I used to have 5 gallon Crystal water jugs I filled with water and put them next to my potted tomatoes in PA. I'd wrap the plants in the Planket with the 5 gallon jugs and they'd survive past Thanksgiving (even though freezes usually occurred in October). Water is an amazing heater.

[@Steve_Mazza]

As you said, this kind of insulation only works to smooth out sudden temperature drops and to cut the wind a bit. If a freeze lasts all day, the plants will die. I think it could have worked better with stiffer frames, fastening the cloth to the frame in many locations to reduce the whipping of the cloth, and adding either light bulbs or heat tape inside each raised bed. If the heat source is on a thermostat, total consumption shouldn't be too bad. I still don't think you would want to do this all season except for very special plants. At that point, I think you should just build a greenhouse.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Greenhouses can’t be built here. HOA regs, and the plot is way too small. The problem with where I live is it is in a cold spot, so the forecasts are highly unreliable if there is no wind. This is a really old video, so I’ve learned a lot about my slice of land since. It has been a lot of trial and error.

[@Steve_Mazza]

@@TheMillennialGardener "Greenhouses can’t be built here. HOA regs, and the plot is way too small." The plot you showed is too small for any kind of greenhouse? Yikes. And I don't understand these HOA people - what are they thinking?

[@lisawells4958]

Is there any reason you didn’t choose Agribon AG 50? I’m sure you did your research as I’m trying to do. What sold you Agrifabric? Why plant jackets instead of wrapping maybe even a couple of times with Agribon AG 50? I too have citrus & avocados I need to plant outside bc no room inside. Also from your storefront you have 6mm greenhouse plastic. What do you use it for?

[@deniseb789]

Hello! I'm interested in purchasing a Planket because I made a rookie mistake and started my squash seeds 8 weeks before last frost. I know they'll get big and I'll have to harden them early and potentially plant them outside before last frost. Do you think the Planket will help with early transplanting? Or should I just start over in 4 weeks? Hope to hear from you! Thanks.

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Do you have seeds leftover? If so, I'd be more likely to just toss the plants and start new seeds. The problem with squash, cucumbers, watermelons and other cucurbits is they are not only frost-sensitive, but also cold sensitive. A pepper and tomato plant can tolerate dips into the 30's at night and as long as they don't get frosted on or freeze, they'll be fine. Cucurbits aren't like that. They get sickly even with nights in the 40's. They suffer nutrient uptake issues. I tried growing cucumbers in a greenhouse and kept it frost-free, and my tomatoes and peppers flourished, but all my cucumbers still died. They need minimum 50 degree nights. I don't plant my squash, cucumbers and watermelons until several weeks after my last frost date. In fact, I don't even start my SEED until my frost date! Cucumbers, squash and watermelon are ready from seed to transplant in 2-3 weeks, so I recommend not starting them til your last frost date and planting out a few weeks later when the cool night fluctuations are gone.

[@MK-ti2oo]

Did your tomato stems break much when you laid them down after taking the stakes out?

[@TheMillennialGardener]

You have to be careful when covering and uncovering tomatoes, because the stems are pretty fragile.

[@MK-ti2oo]

@@TheMillennialGardener absolutely! I'm positive that if I tried to lay mine down (they're single leader trellised and about 8ft tall) the stems would break, they're about 2.5-3"thick stems and not super bendy lol.

[@patrickgniech7873]

Will covers work with containers?

[@TheMillennialGardener]

For frost, yes. For freeze, no. They'll just freeze through if you don't keep a source of warmth underneath the blanket.

[@jeffreydustin5303]

Tarp?

[@ericadgueho_mama_art954]

💚💚💚

[@TheMillennialGardener]

Thanks for watching!