After a warm summer and fall, our flowers are in for a rude awakening. Temperatures are expected to fall into the 30's Friday morning and 20's next week. Highs next will only be in the 50's. This will be the coldest air we have seen yet this season. We don't have a ton of moisture to work with though. A Freeze Watch has been posted for the area through Friday morning.
"You can let them get nipped by the frost or you can do some covering but it all depends on how cold it is. If it stays like in the 20s for 2 or 3 hours a blanket is really not going to do any good, said plant doctor Steve Packer.
The ground has to reach freezing for frost to occur, but the air temperature where measurements are taken could be a few degrees warmer. Same is true when a frost doesn’t occur, and just colder air has moved in. You might still want to protect your plants if the thermometer says it's 35 degrees outside.
"I'm just going to take precautions as far as my low growing plants and cover them for when it gets under 33,” said gardener Maggie Smith.
We usually see our first freeze towards the middle of October. That’s at the airport. Drive five minutes outside of the airport, and the low temperature will usually be at least a couple degrees cooler. Frost forms when it is cold enough to freeze and saturation occurs. This is similar to dew but the temperature is below freezing. Sometimes frost can look like snow. This is called white frost. The colder the temperature, typically the thicker the frost will be. Sometimes the best thing to do is just bring your plants inside. This can help preserve the color as well.
"If you have a lot of tomatoes pick them. Put them in a cardboard box, set them on a table counter just let them ripen naturally. It will take a few weeks but they will turn red,” said Packer.
The harvest season is coming to an end.
