The cold weather THIS WEEK. Arghh. Warning

RAS

jenie wrote: »

Hi all, quick question, I have some young meteor peas outside, they are about a foot high, whats the best way to protect them ?

Peas are generally hardy. Unless you have grown them indoors and only put them out in the last three days, worry not.

jenie_2

Thankyou RAS, its just that a ground and air frost has been predicted for tonight, after all that nurturing I don't want the frost to get them. They've been outside about 3 weeks now.

RAS

They will be fine; I have had golden sweet mangetout plants outside and producing up to Christmas in previous years; they were happy and still producing down to about minus 7 until the gale battered them to death. Minus 17 was asking a bit much this winter.

poly1

Ohhh I have frost forecast for here tonight, I have got runner beans nearly a foot up the canes (planted in situ) I just randomly put them in when I found some seeds, will the frost have them completely? I have all my seeds outside wrapped in fleece but are they better off raised off the ground or put on the ground (forcaster can't decide if we are getting ground or air frost!), cos ive got them balanced on a scaffold board about 2ft off the ground.

[Deleted User]

mine are out and I have wrapped fleece around the wigwam and over the top as well. I`m not worried as the worse that can happen is that they don`t make it and I`ll just plant more seeds only directly into the soil this time. The very very drying east wind has been very bad for many plants and they are being battered day and night. I feel for the nursery people

Primrose

I rather optimistically packed away some of my cloches at the week-end, but brought them out again late this afternoon when I heard the frost forecast for tonight. Newspapers wrapped around bean plants will protect them if you don't have any fleece. If you're growing peas or beans up bamboo canes, kitchen pegs are a good way of keeping the newspapers in place. I try to avoid watering my plants too much at this time of year if frost is forecast because I think dampness around the base of tender plants just reduces the temperature in their micro climate even further, causing more damage.

[Deleted User]

The temperature last night hit target at 2 and they said that chill would be -2. It looks ok in the back just now but I am off to the allotment in a mo to see how the runner beans have fared. Doh dh watered them from above last night and soaked the leaves, which looked very limp afterwards. I am hoping that most will still be standing this morning, fingers crossed. I did plant more than I need

edit: I am just back and all is well. All runner beans have picked up and squashes etc looking good. Phew, I brought the fleeces home now as the weather will get better for the plants, so we have a window in which the plants can get stronger and ready for the next dry spell

peter_the_piper

Glad I ignored the BBC web site which said 6deg and turned all the heaters back on (except one which decided to throw a wobbly). Heavy frost, only just gone from the car. Hoped to be free of this by now.

Lotus-eater

We had a -5 frost, bad one.

ginvzt

So I was lucky to escape with the min of 1.4C tonight!

Anyway, all was covered and the plastic greenhouse that was blown away last weekend was back up. I just hope that this was the last cold night this week.