Bit of frost in the Edmonton area (rural but nothing serious.

No such animal in the city. :) Everyone is just fine although on the back deck still. :) Sunshine and nature's tears have turned my deck into a jungle! Let the planting begin!

Ginny

No frost but we're having the warmest May in over a decade here in Saskatoon. We usually get frost, snow or cold soaking rains at this time of year, but not this year.
In 2009, our last frost was June 10th.

Sounds like everyone escaped the wrath.

We have had a really warm spring too. I could have planted out over a month ago had I known.

Good luck on everyone planting out and let's see some pictures!!!

So, the bad news is that it looks like I lost 6 coleus and 4 zinnia due to this late cold snap. Can we take a moment.....

Stupid thing was they were covered lol. I only suffered losses on covered plants...go figure.

Thankfully, 4 of the coleus were purchased after safe frost date so i will get a new plant.... But.... It still hurts..LOL

So what did you end up covering them with?

If the cover actually touches the plant, sometimes that will kind of negate the covering effect. It's happened to me before too. :-/

That's too bad,.. my guess is that covering was done with light plastic, as they say it doesn't help,.. but I still do it sometimes, have a hard believing that it doesn't help, perhaps thin plastic, sometime I use heavy tarp in the fall to cover veggies.

No frost here either (we're rural, a ways east of S'toon). We did get some nasty winds Sunday evening, though, and of course I had transplanted half of the tomatoes in the afternoon. Thankfully the hail they had in Meacham didn't end up hitting us! Tomatoes fared better than I thought, considering they were whipping completely sideways at one point last evening. :)

I had covered them with bed sheets propped up. Since we didn't get frost just cold my guess is the sheets did the reverse of what I wanted. Kept the cold in as it was only below zero for a couple hours.

Next time I will use tarps and a space heater.

The forecast now looks like Mother Nature wants to try and drown them.

I use dollar Store shower curtains or liners. They are light and protective and easy to pin down with clothes pins. And they take up very little space in storage. :)
Lance, ⪠If you're ever gonna see a rainbow....â« â¼

Ginny

SCG, if the soil was originally warm enough to be planting your tender annuals, the sheets would have helped to retain that warmth, not the other way around. I seriously doubt that covering them with sheets would have contributed to their demise.

North, I totally agree. But can't figure out why only covered plants died. Same plant uncovered 12" away and farther all survived. It was +7 at midnight, +0.8 at 5 am and -0.8 at 6:30. By 7:30 it was 1C. I, too, am stumped.

Bright side is am hardening off replacements today! Lol. I am also wondering if I can actually put too many plants in my beds. Haha

well, hopefully you won't have any more set-backs. I, on the other hand, am worried about the lows in the forecast again. I'm hesitant to move everything outside only to have to back track yet again.
ARGH, I just checked the forecast again, and it's revised again. I should quit looking at it. (It's actually a more favourable forecast this time though).

If only my camera could capture the full brightness of this a full double rainbow.

Oh, that's beautiful, Cindy!! "Like"!

WOW That is one beautiful rainbow. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

Nice pic!

Good luck North. Our forecast looks good BUT it also looked good when I planted. The bonus of the weather we are having is I am not worried about keeping my seeds moist and the animals don't tend to go in wet beds.

I have never regretted buying row cover for frost protection - some Agribon (maybe of Lee Valley but most seed catalogues carry them) and some other brand I found at the local co-op (on clearance, to boot). It's lightweight so never crushes the plants. I also got some wire hoops and along with the agribon, use it to keep the wind from destroying transplants, or help settle in tenders like tomatoes and cucs. I spread it over newly seeded beds of corn and beans to keep the soil warm for quicker germination. I use lengths of rebar and/or bricks to keep it in place. In the fall I wrap the tall tomatoe plants and pin with clothespins to keep away that one early freak frost that we always seem to get. Once you get it, you'll never know how you did without.

And now for the truly dumb question. How do you keep it from blowing away? I can't imagine that clothes pegs would hold with our wind. Just this weekend we got a new tarp big one it blew into our yard from who knows where.

I most often use bricks but also use long lengths of rebar.

Wow pudge some impressive gardens. Unfortunately I couldn't use them in this case but will look at them for next years garden.

Those beds look so cozy!!

edit - so now I read the whole post and saw that you did mention bricks DuH!! that makes the question even dumber. LOL

This post was edited by CLBlakey on Tue, May 28, 13 at 22:34

One thing to watch out for is mulch. Plants growing on mulched soil, especially where that mulch is dry straw, leaves or similar organic material, will freeze before those growing on bare, moist soil. Mulch blocks heat transfer from the soil to the air.

Agree with pudge that row covers are very, very useful. The lightest grades are also useful for keeping flea beetles and cabbage worms off of brassicas. I even overwintered swiss chard this winter using doubled row covers, although that was a fluke (we got very early heavy snow that contributed to the insulating effect).

This post was edited by Slimy_Okra on Wed, May 29, 13 at 0:53

I went ahead and planted out the large planter near the house. Some of the plants in there would not be frost hardy, but I rationalized that I will be able to cover if needed, and it is near the house which should help.
But now I see the forecast for the weekend has lows of 4C. I want to put my dahlias in the front bed, but now I think I should wait. Geez.

My message to Ma Nature is "ENOUGH WITH THE RAIN". Luckily there has not been a lot of frost but that's only because of the almost constant rain. I've managed to plant some perennials and a few annuals but have lots more to plant. Don't like gardening in the rain and with clay soil it's not advisable anyhow.

The entire province of BC has been covered with cloud for weeks. The forecast seems to say it's improving with partial cloud and fairly warm temps and only frost this weekend here. I'm going to get all the perennials planted and hold off on most of the annuals til after the weekend.

I just finished planting annuals by the house and containers. Last nite the wind howled so had to move some containers. Never got the rain just wind! Will have to water everything today because it is really dry here-since snow melted albeit late we have had no rain to speak of. Another windy day today gusting to 60 kms. I'm glad I didn't plant tomatoes out yet. Will wait a few more days. Even with little moisture everything I planted is up in the garden except corn beans and squash. No sign of rain in forecast......gardening here can be a challenge...gotta love it

It hailed on Tuesday night. Luckily very little damage.

Other than that it's been mostly nice. Lots of rain. Unfortunately I think my rain barrel broke. Grr.

Glad you all are having some success. In my zone, which is a wannabe, we have had a pile of people lose crops..

Where are you all at Lucky, Tessa and Shazam?

I'm out of the race. June 1st. Hard frost last night took almost everything. Weatherman didn't call for it, over-night low didn't even hint at it, but it came just the same. Even my potatoes....even weeds! My houseplants on the porch, the buds on my lillies, almost all veggies and annuals...gone.

My tomatoes that were in wall-o-waters will survive but the tops were taken.

The local newspapers mention nothing about frost last night. Is my yard the only one?! Too bad we don't live back in ancient times when the king could be-head the weatherman if crops fail. I'll bet they would be more spot-on at all times...but then we wouldn't have many weathermen, would we?! :)

At least I'm not in Oklahoma.

Too late to start over so while most people will be munching on corn, melon, peppers and beans...I'll be eating my radishes. I quit!

Oh, no! I feel for you... I really, really do. :(

We had the exact opposite problem here last night. We had a frost warning - not "chance of frost" but an actual warning. Then it only went down to 8 degrees last night. A couple of hours' work coming up with inventive coverings that could have been better spent weeding. I wouldn't trade shoes, though.

Did everyone around you lose their gardens, too, or is your yard more susceptible for one reason or another (sunken, etc.)?

Yes frost can be difficult to predict, it seems. It appears to occur in ribbons. Some areas can be several degrees colder than those nearby. We've noticed that while driving; temperature readings fluctuate quite a bit. My yard is low, but now that the trees have leafed out, I seem to be more protected.
But a hard frost on June 1st is just not fair! I feel your pain. I still haven't done my containers because it's been so cold in my backyard. Today my sis and I went around to the greenhouses and almost froze. I felt like I should be wearing gloves. It was the wind that was making it so uncomfortable. One of the places we went was a truck with plants from a community a couple hours south of here. The owner said they had frost last week.

Our turn now. There's no frost warning but the low is supposed to be +2, feels like -3. I have everything covered and a bunch of containers in the shed. This is crazy. :(

RWS, i'm so sorry!

RWS - I feel your pain ------------(((((GROUP HUG))))))

That's really disappointing, RWS. We have a predicted +2 tonight as well but it's so nice out there right now, +20, I find it kinda hard to believe. Stupid weather.

But, I don't think it's too late to seed. I still plan to seed another crop of corn (Northern Super Sweet, excellent short season corn) for a later harvest, and my first seeding has just emerged as have the beans. I've not yet transplanted the tomatoes, cucumber, squash or watermelon, and I just transplanted some lettuce today (yes, dropped the ball on that a bit, lol). There's still time.

Thanks Pudge, for the nudge (smile)...but honestly, the wind is really knocked out of my sails for this season. Some of my corn hasn't sprouted yet, maybe it will. How weird that in walking around assessing the damage, I noticed a watermelon that survived unscathed, while a weed right next to it froze!

I'm not sure if any neighbors lost anything, but I can't imagine my yard is any more vulnerable than theirs. I think the sky just cleared up for a couple of hours and with so much humidity in the air from rain clouds it just "happened". Maybe it's the altitude, I'm about 4200 feet (1220 meters I think).

Thanks everybody for the condolences.

I'm in NW Calgary.

having your hopes dashed is a hard pill,
as was mentioned, you may be able to recoup with some short season varieties,
don't give-in quite yet, we have yet to finish seeding our garden

i wonder which is worse on the psyche,
a devastating frost at the start of the season,
or a devastating hail just prior to harvest?

Oh man RWS. That totally sucks. I am 120 miles north of you and we were +8. Albeit a hair far to drive I would dig some annuals up for you if you came up.

Another frost warning for tonight. Sigh...

Oh damn, I just saw the frost warning for tonight. Hard to believe because it is such a nice evening. But after what happened to RWS, I better not take a chance. I did the back breaking work of hauling my containers into the shed and covered a few exposed plantings, but if it's a hard frost all my hostas will take a hit because they are too large and I'm too tired to run around in the dark trying to protect them. I'm going to hope for the best. More sighing from me.....

Dh told me it was -2 at some point during the night and the weather people say frost again tonight. This is depressing. :(

Its been raining here but no frost PTL I have to plant out everything I have today hope the wind stops so they don't break off.

I wish you guys all the best. So far we are looking good.