Quote:
Originally Posted by Keger
Planting time. From what I hear at least.
Are a few 40 degree to 38 degree night hurt anything with new transplants?
I see the guys here plant now, some say its early, but I have seen pecan trees bud, so I think its ok.
Forecast says a few low temp night coming up.
Thanks!
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Where your forecast comes from can make a huge difference. I suggest using a site like Wunderground.com or the NOAA website and look at the semi-hourly reports.
Television weather reports can be particularly misleading. They typically give the highest and lowest temperature between midnight-to-midnight, rather than the actual highest and coolest temperature for the day. I can't count how many times the weather person on TV has called for a low of 36 yet it actually continued to drop until reaching 31 degrees around 7am before it started warming up again.
Also time matters. A prediction of 38 at midnight slowly dipping to 35 by sunrise is not nearly as dangerous as a prediction of 38 at 9pm, continuing to drop to 35 at 1am and holding there until 7am. 2-3 hours of exposure to near-freezing is totally different than 5-6 hours of exposure.
At this point, and after seeing the success of this plan 2 years in a row in Suze's garden, I recommend picking an afternoon to install tomato cages, plant out, and then wrap with summerweight row cover. By leaving the row cover in place until early April, you create a slight greenhouse effect on warm days and cushion the evening chills.
If a warm day is expected, then the cover can be pulled back from the tops of the cages to let hot air out. And if a cool night is predicted, then close everything up with small binder clips from Office Depot. It sure beats rushing out to install sheets or blankets.
P.S. I just looked up Weather Underground for N.W. Houston and the lowest temp I saw was mid-40.