all change to cold weather. How to protect plants 31 March 2012 at 7:37AM in Greenfingered MoneySaving 7 replies 885 views

[Deleted User]

The weather change looks drastic and we could well be back to freezing temperatures. I am not the only one with healthy young seedlings and transplants to protect. I have a root trainer containing 40 plants ie chillis and peppers (some to give away) and another with 20 good tomatoes. They are in a cold small greenhouse and I just cover them with fleece at night but I may well bring them into the house if needed.

I have hundreds of other seedlings, flowers, brassicas, salad greens, carrots etc. How do you protect yours? what do you do about newly emerging potato shoots?

peter_the_piper

Tougher plants covered by fleece or bubble. Fragile ones are in heated greenhouses. Seeds and cuttings are on a heated bench to be covered if temp really drops.

kazschow

i've got lots of dry roop plants I planted up in 1 inch pots, some showing some signs of growth, and all the young plants from the perenial lucky dip thing with T&M, in 5 inch pots, will they all survive stayng outside? I've not got a greenhouse so what alternatives could I try? Thank you

[Deleted User]

kazschow, I would either bring them in if possible or use fleece if you cannot. I am putting bubble wrap on top of my small polycarbonate greenhouses and bringing tomatoes, chillis , peppers and basil indoors. I hunted out my fleeces this morning and will cover my emerging carrots, roses.

Looking at the weather forecast, it will get very much worse day by day

kazschow

Thanks Kittie

foxgloves

Just to say I've had the same problem in the past, but seem to have solved it. I potted up all my aubergines, tomatoes, peppers & chillies while we had the lovely sunshine, then the nights started dropping very cold & here in the North Midlands, we've had big frosts most nights. To start with, I just fleeced my little plants, but they started to look a bit ropey from the extremes of temperature, so I dug out all the transparent pots from things like olives, coleslaw, etc, that I'd been saving to use as pots & put one over each plantlet. This seems to have worked as they are looking much better now. I still fleece them while these current frosts continue, but fleece over the top of the pot 'cloches' so I guess the double layer of insulation's helping. Also, I know this sounds obvious but I forgot to do it the first couple of warm days.....I'm shutting the greenhouse window while it's still warm outside to keep a bit of heat in. Hope your plants survive. Good luck!

[Deleted User]

it`s -1 now and will get colder. I am very glad I protected my vulnerable plants. I worked out the virtual value of my chillis, peppers and tomatoes alone and there are over 80 plants in total, Good strong plants too and they seem to retail at £2-3 each, for the chillis anyway esp as they are unusual ones.

We had to drive at 5am yesterday and had to scrape the car

antw23uk

All my young plants im hardening off came back into the conservatory last night ... Not taking any chances, lol