I checked things outside, all summer stuff, flowers and ornamental sweet potatoes are gone, still had about 1/4" of ice in a container off the ground at 9:00 AM. The fall stuff is a little droopy but should be fine.

I dont think I can ever get ready for snow. I know it is needed but I will try to give my share to someone else.

Larry

Jay, I can't say that I am surprised. I've been getting an early winter "vibe" for 4-6 weeks now...not really based on anything but just that vague feeling that I won't like winter because it will be too cold. Actually, I'd wondered to myself if I was just fearing an early winter more than intuitively feeling one was coming merely because the fall garden was so beautiful, but there have been signs...like the woolly bear caterpillars have been out and about feeding and look really furry. That's one of those old folk things....Also, the mast crop from the trees in the woods is incredibly large and the squirrels are incredibly busy gathering nuts and storing away the ones they don't immediately eat.

I took a quick look at my garden this morning, and most warm season plants that weren't covered are toast, but at the west end of the garden where the pecan tree sits outside the fence, nothing looks frosted so maybe the shelter of the pecan tree helped out those plants a bit. The winter squash might still be alive down low to the ground, but the leaves on the trellis are hanging limply and I know they're done.

The plants in the greenhouse looked fine when I peeked in the door at them this morning and the thermometer there showed 38 degrees at 8:30 a.m. when it was 28 degrees outside so those plants may gave dodged a bullet. We'll know in an hour or two.

Chris had about a minute of snow/sleet pellets and a few flakes, all mixed with rain, falling on him in Denton yesterday on his way to work and the air temp was 44-45 degrees, but clearly there was some much colder air aloft.

You might be surprised how similar our temperatures were to yours this morning. At our house it was 28, but at the Burneyville mesonet station about 5 miles west of us as the crow flies, it was 25 degrees.

I haven't checked the plants under the row covers in the garden, but if the 28 degree temperature reading was accurate and if the garden didn't drop lower than that (I need to put a min-max thermometer out in the garden to track that because it's pretty far from the outside thermometers at the house, barn and chicken coop), then my beans, peas and peppers will live at least one more day. Tonight or tomorrow night's cold will get them if it goes just a few degrees lower than this morning.

A lot of the areas north of us stayed warmer than we did and I am happy for them. I do think the fruit trees need a break to rest. The Methley Plum dropped leaves in August and went dormant even though I felt like it was well-watered. Then, in early October it started blooming as it broke dormancy. Ever since then, it has had new blooms and leaves almost daily. Maybe now it will relax and enjoy a long winter dormancy so it can bloom (much too early as always) next spring.

I still have fig trees and citrus trees with ripening fruit, so I dragged them into the garage last night in the hope that they will be able to ripen their fruit. The oranges and lemons are breaking color and ripening up nicely so I think I'll be able to harvest them soon, but the figs are still pretty small and I think it is unlikely the late figs will ripen before the cold gets them. Since they produce two crops a year, I'm happy if I get ripe figs from either crop and don't automatically expect that both the breba crop and late crop will mature. Our weather is just too flakey for the late crop to be guaranteed time to mature.

I still have many cool-season crops to deal with for the next few weeks until it gets bitterly cold, and will be harvesting broccoli really soon. This year the fall broccoli has done much better than the spring broccoli and I'm happy about that.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Map: Mesonet Low Temps Since Midnight