Protecting Your Garden Against The Winter Frost

[TEG Project Manager]

Temperate climate growers don't have to worry about whether they'll get frost, just when and how strong! Several principles and actions should be taken before a frost hits your garden or farm.

The Sensitivity of Plants​

You must know which annual plants are sensitive to frost in order to protect them. Veggie families like cucurbits are sensitive, but some are more sensitive than others. Frost is also a problem for tomatoes and peppers.

In contrast, kale and chard can handle light frosts.

When managing an approaching frost, be aware of the differences in crop frost sensitivity.

Assess Frost Severity​

There are two factors that determine the severity of frost: field conditions and the environment surrounding the field. Frost warnings are issued when temperatures reach 35 degrees F (2 degrees C), and certainly at freezing.

The length of time the ambient temperature stays this low makes a big difference in frost formation. Temperatures that stay low for many hours at night can cause a severe frost that is extremely damaging to crops like pumpkins. Even if temperatures are in danger zones when it is cloudy or windy, frost might not occur as severely or as intensely.

Moisture also plays a role. The ground will soak up more cold before the vegetables freeze if there is more moisture in it.

Keep an Eye on the Weather​

Stay up-to-date with weather forecasts so you can prepare your garden for frost days in advance.

Taking Action​

Based on your goals, you can manage a looming frost in several ways.

To Harvest or To Protect?​

Before the frost, harvest frost-sensitive long-season crops. Bring your winter squash or tomatoes to be processed into sauces. A further increase in crop yield may be obtained by bringing in green tomatoes and letting them ripen inside.

In other cases, the crop cannot be stored and must be protected to continue to be harvested. The same would be true for (for instance) chard that can continue to thrive for weeks, even months if protected from minor frosts.

The best thing to do is to harvest before the frost or to protect your crop from it.

Gain growing time by protecting crops​

Protecting against the first frost often extends the growing season. You can give squash or tomatoes more time to ripen by covering them.

Don't prioritize harvesting and protecting crops that aren't threatened by frost (or, in some cases, are actually benefited by it). Frost makes carrots sweeter in the fall for example.

Haves and Needs​

Identify the size of the area you wish to protect, as well as what supplies you already possess. Growing beds of crops are covered with field row covers in commercial settings. To protect tomatoes or chard from overnight frost, homesteaders may save old blankets and duvets for use as blankets.

Compared to field row covers, these blankets offer much greater frost protection. Of course, this is not feasible for a market garden bed the length of 100 or 300 feet!

For minor frosts, use moisture​

Using a sprinkler system can also reduce the frost impact, as it absorbs cold into the humid air instead of freezing the crop. Minor frost can be dealt with this way. But it won't prevent a long-lasting heavy frost.

Frost-proof design​

The layout of your garden can also help reduce overall frost damage.

It is better to set up your gardens higher up at night so that cold air can sink away. Nevertheless, gardens situated in low spots (particularly if the wind is blocked) will accumulate cold air, causing frost to pool for hours early in the morning.

To maximize the success of your garden, I hope you will use these frost tips. They will help you protect your garden from frost so you can increase yields and grow longer.

 

[ducks4you]

I bring in my tomatoes every year and usually I am able to can about 12 quarts after that. I also bring in sweet peppers and I cut them up and freeze them for cooking. Haven't successfully grown onions Yet, but I freeze chopped up onions, as well.
I have had success covering peppers with bed sheets. We have had a drought off and on for months now, so any frost this weekend will not be heavy. I also can cover the sheets with tarps to keep them dry, if necessary.

 

[Jane23]

Is there a thread on here about cover crops? I did a test of my soil, and it needs some work. If I can get any of them to grow before the negative temperatures come in, from what I read, I will have fairly good soil, depending on what I do.

 

[Zeedman]

Provided that I plant on time, almost everything is done - or done enough - by the time frost arrives. Then I just harvest all peppers, all beans, and the best green tomatoes to bring indoors. But since I save seed, it is sometimes necessary to protect something for an extra week or two beyond the frost.

Because I planted late, this year is one of those times. One long DTM soybean is close, but will need some extra time to begin drying... so it will be tarped. One long-DTM pole shelly is only beginning to dry; and adjacent to it are a runner bean & a pole lima that could use some extra time, so I will try to tarp over both trellises, to form a sealed tunnel. A small space heater, and a fan to push warm air down the 30' row, will hopefully save at least some of each. It looks like at least a week of warmer weather once we get past this frost... which would allow most of the beans to ripen.

 

[Zeedman]

Is there a thread on here about cover crops? I did a test of my soil, and it needs some work. If I can get any of them to grow before the negative temperatures come in, from what I read, I will have fairly good soil, depending on what I do.

Where are you located? If you have enough time left in your season, alfalfa might be a good choice for cover crop. If it has time to get established, it will over winter, begin growing in the Spring, and add nitrogen when cut or turned under. The long tap roots also help to open channels in the sub-soil.

Those in warmer climates can be growing cover crops in the winter, while I'm looking at the snow & dreaming. When I lived in California, I cover cropped at various times with crimson clover, favas, and a mixture of peas, purple vetch, and oats. Couldn't get much edible from the peas other than shoots, but that mixture added a lot of tilth and fertility when it was mowed & turned under.

 

[Jane23]

I live where the snow will fly probably by November. Many people plant alfalfa, which is an option for the future. I am looking to plant a small batch of seeds for growing legumes and maybe some grasses in the next month. If I can get even a bit started, I know I can turn it into Green manure, which will be good for refueling everything in the spring.

 

[digitS']

I had trouble planting Winter Rye late.

It grew but there were only tiny plants in the Spring. Tilling them in amounted to just transplanting many of the rye seedlings. The ground was tied up with the tilling process for several weeks or the garden veggies would have been having to deal with the rye as a weed. The soil gained little from the small plants.

Planting rye about the first of August really amounted to a good deal of organic material. However, I had to pull it by hand, dig out the bed to about 8-10", and bury the Winter Rye. Wonderful. But. I was tying up the garden bed through the late part of the growing season. A crop of Asian greens was possible, with that August first planting date.

@Manda_Rae has a Winter Cover thread LINK.

Steve

 

[Jane23]

I will plant a small mixture of Triticale, Ryegrain, Nemfix Mustard, Bell Beans, Biomaster Peas, Common Vetch, Cayuse Oats, Biomaster Winter Peas; Purple Vetch, Lana Vetch, and Dunsdale Peas. I don't know if any of it will go, but it is worth a shot to help my soil repair a bit.

 

[ducks4you]

Is there a thread on here about cover crops? I did a test of my soil, and it needs some work. If I can get any of them to grow before the negative temperatures come in, from what I read, I will have fairly good soil, depending on what I do.

Cover crops need to be planted at different times in the Fall to be successful. It's very hard to say, in your case. Your location is missing from your avatar, so, I guess, every time you have a question you can tell us where you live.

 

[ducks4you]

@digitS' , After I pulled the corn from the northmost east-west 2021 chicken wire fencerow I hand raked deeply and planted garlic covering it with a few inches of mulch, then straw. After a few weeks I thought there were little weeds growing in it. I stopped pulling when I realised that they were oats that were sprouting.
When I planted oats, same bed, a few years ago I got the seed in pretty early and it had died down in a mat by mid winter, just what you want.
Funny, a panelist on Mid American Gardener, now passed on--he was Nearly 90yo--suggested planting oats in the Spring where your lawn has a grass problem. We get grass seeding browning in the summer, and he said your tender grass would die out, but the oats wouldn't. Then, he said, over plant grass seed there in early September and it will establish before the winter.
It's really the same principle.