How To Save Plants In Cold Weather

While a few leaves were gone, the plants all survived

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

We recently had a blast of Arctic air in my area. Overnight lows fell to about 33 degrees Fahrenheit a couple of days ago. That is just a wee bit above freezing. Some plants, like spinach, may be fine down to 28 degrees, but others, like tomatoes, don’t like temperatures below 32 degrees. So the weather forecast was a good warning I might want to protect my plants.

I did not have a way to tent them properly, something I used to do when I lived in Colorado. However, I expected early frosts in Denver. Not so much in Austin. Typical Austin daytime temperatures this time of year are in the high 60s and low 70s and night-time lows are typically about 50 degrees.

So gardeners will keep harvesting tomatoes through November in a typical year.

This year, many gardeners have had plants die on them.

Mine so far have survived despite my not tenting them.

However, there were two factors to this.

First, I was using a raised bed. On the one hand, the root system may not be as robust with this technique. On the other hand, being a couple of feet higher actually keeps the plants a little warmer.