Late freeze tonight...what to expect.

[digitS']

I'm not sure about what helps and how much. @nittygrittydirtdigger was telling us last spring about the helicopters hovering above the cherry orchards night after night. Apparently, the movement of air or the mixing of air layers helps mitigate frost. Big outfits do things because of the economics of size and crop insurance that don't make sense to backyard orchardists.

I have run sprinklers on the veggie and flower gardens even to the point of covering plants with ice. It does help. To what temperature, I'm not sure. Frost damage is partly dehydration of the tissue. (Dad broke branches off his apple trees running sprinklers.)

When I was a kid, there were fruit orchards all around us there in the Rogue River Valley. In the spring, our white farm house would turn black from the waste oil that was burned in the smudge pots. Window screens were clogged with soot. What a mess, some years.

I had to walk nearly a mile to the bus stop through that air. I guess I could have dropped out of school and gotten a job firing those smudge pots like my brother did.

Steve

 

[kathiesgarden]

Thank you again, journey. It got down to 21º last night, but none of my buds have started expanding enough to be problematic -- I hope!

Great chart. Your weather sounds much like ours, It was Sunny and 80 on Saturday. Cool and Rainy Sunday. COLD and SNOWING Monday. We woke to 24 degrees this morning. So we start the slow warm up again.

You guys are sure getting it this year! I guess I'd better not complain about our weather being in the 50's and windy! I am very glad we're not still having snow; although it is possible (probably not this year) in our climate to have a freak snowstorm late in the Spring. I hope your weather warms up real soon.

 

[kathiesgarden]

@Steve, my husband grew up near the Yak River working with his grandfather making posts for fences! Seems like another world ago, doesn't it? I remember the smudge pots for the orange groves (when they still existed) in Southern California. My granddaughter saw a picture of a dial telephone the other day and asked me what it was!! lol

 

[catjac1975]

Well, a couple days of deceptive summer-like temperatures have prompted most of my fruit trees into blooming. It snowed this morning and it is supposed to get down to 24 degrees here tonight.

I found this very handy pictorial chart of fruit tree bud stages (PDF file) and at what temperatures to expect enough damage to lose your crop. Sounds like most of us here in the Midwest to Southeast will be biting our nails tonight.

According to the chart, I can expect to lose my apple crop this year on my two large trees that are already well in bloom. I have one smaller tree not quite up to bearing age. It hasn't bloomed yet. The big tree on the farm probably hasn't bloomed yet either. My peaches should be safe though. And my two young pear trees aren't blooming yet either, but I didn't expect much out of them this year anyway.

Not sure about my blueberries, since they aren't on the chart. They are in full bloom, so I'm going to cover them with plastic row covers and plug up a heat lamp.

If you remember the warm winter we had, I think it was 2011-12, my blueberries came into gorgeous bloom very early. We had one last hard frost and got almost no blueberries that year. One other year we had a huge wind storm during bloom and the blossoms all blew off. Every other year we have enough for the whole neighborhood. I hope your plan worked out.

 

[Smart Red]

I'd heard of that and I might have otherwise tried it, except I don't wanna go out in my jammies tonight. LOL

Then don't wear your jammies. We are open minded, besides, if it came to fruit or nothing at all, I'd be out there doing whatever I could to keep at least some of the fruit from freezing.

 

[journey11]

Haha...my turn to be the crazy neighbor!

I've decided not to spray the apples. It's about 35 degrees right now and I'm headed for bed. I'll hang my hopes on my Dad's tree since it blooms a little later. Mine are in the "first bloom" stage, probability of 90% kill at 25 degrees. Now they're saying the low will be 26. Close, but they're on their own now.

I ran around all afternoon scrounging up buckets, heavy trash bags and rubbermaid tubs to cover my roses, some trilliums I wasn't sure about and a couple small blooming shrubs. Got the blueberries under hoops with a couple of heavy tarps. I put a 250-watt brooder bulb in there, but noticed it had burned out prior to dark, so I ran back out and put a 60-watt incandescent in there since that was all I had. The 250 might have been too much anyway. The tarps hold heat well and got my meat birds through some nights in the teens last fall, so I'm feeling pretty optimistic for the blueberries.

When these 4 bushes get up to their full grown size of 5', I'm sure I'll be able to put back enough blueberries in good years to get through those bad years that are sure to come in turn.

 

[Smart Red]

When these 4 bushes get up to their full grown size of 5', I'm sure I'll be able to put back enough blueberries in good years to get through those bad years that are sure to come in turn.

After the drought we had the summer of 2012, not one of my blueberries had fruit suitable for harvest and even worse, not one plant set fruit buds so there were no berries in 2013 either. After having fresh blueberries every year, going two years without them has been tough.

 

[digitS']

@Steve, my husband grew up near the Yak River working with his grandfather making posts for fences! Seems like another world ago, doesn't it? . . .

I wonder if they brought their posts to North Idaho Post & Pole near Chilco. I used to do that!

My neighbors, the Hatch family, had quite a bit of land with lodgepole on it. I'd cut & load and haul them down to the mill, which wasn't far away. Then I'd have to wait until the first of the month for a check. It kept me out of trouble about this time one year. It was sure hard on the truck!

Steve

 

[kathiesgarden]

@digits There was a place in Troy Mt. where they took the posts. Going to Bonners Ferry was a big deal once a month. The Yak was pretty remote then. Mike's grandparents lived off old highway 2 near Bonner Lake. Mike remembers the years working out there as a young teenager as some of the best of his life. Nice that you have seen that area too.

 

[journey11]

Well, second night of freezing temps. I just uncovered everything and the casualties are in... Lost the blooms on one blueberry bush because the second tarp I used was lighter weight, I think. The other 3 look fine though! My little Japanese maple has been zapped on the new leaves that just came out. I think it will recover soon enough. And all the buds were frozen on the pink magnolia. At least I got to smell and enjoy the one that did get to bloom. Trash bags aren't heavy enough to help any...note to self. Everything else looks great though. I think the apples had enough buds still held back (as Red mentioned in another post) to preserve some of the blooms for pollination.

It's quickly warming back up this morning. The 10-day forecast looks much better from here on out!