Well, now you've learned that peppers and tomatoes are tropical annuals and they can not take that kind of cold. If you read the posts here about 4 seasons gardening etc. we have explained what is cold hardy: brassicas, mustards, onions, root veg (which does not include potatoes of any kind).

Sorry about that!

GGG

Last year, I had peppers and tomatoes that got covered about 4 different times from mid november til well into December and kept going (alive) til after Christmas with the Same kind of temps. so I thought my same efforts this time around would protect them enough from getting hit.

So what could have been different? Just too cold in general? maybe a comforter would have been more dense to protect them better?

Must've got below freezing under the covers. I've never noticed tomatoes doing much, even if they stay alive, after near freezing temps. Here I think it was in the high 20s -- tomatoes, which never really got going, have long since been pulled up -- and dipped down briefly to 25 after sunrise. Last year we had 17 in mid November, which surprised just about everything.

Mike

Yes, I think Mike is right. My tomatoes stopped production quite some time ago. I picked them off and put them in the dark in newspaper and we've enjoyed them all. Tomatoes really are daylight dependent and unless you are growing "short season" or "cool season" tomatoes, you may get some ripening but not really any production with less light hours and cold temps.