By now many of you may have experienced the first frost for your area. We had our first frost of the season last Friday. While there was nothing in my garden that I was worried about, frost can mean bad things for a gardener. Or, it may just mean that there are steps we need to take to be prepared.
Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay
My plan for the posts this week is to cover some of the various points regarding frost, especially as it pertains to our gardens. First of all, as most of us know, frost is the formation of ice crystals on surfaces, such as the ground, our cars, and our plants! It occurs when the ground temperature drops down below freezing, even though the air temperature higher up may be above the freeze point. It gets all very scientific, and involves temperature at various levels, condensation, clear skies, etc. More than I profess to know, for sure!
There are many, many tables and charts available for us to look up the average date of the first frost for our geographical region. Sometimes, certain variables might influence the frost date; those being local weather, microclimates, topography. As gardeners, it is good to know our area’s average first frost date. Also, stay tuned to the weather reports. Generally, frost and freeze warnings will be issued by the weather service as we enter into fall and winter. I think these warnings may be specifically geared for gardeners and farmers. Once the season is in full swing, those warnings will not continue to be issued.
Image by Manfred Richter from Pixabay
A light frost may not end up doing too much damage in the garden, depending on which plants are exposed. There are some that may be susceptible to any amount of frost though, such as tropical plants. A frost is considered a killing frost when it ends your growing season. A freeze will almost certainly end the growing season. It’s a bit different than a frost. A freeze occurs when the air temperature is below the freezing point over an area for a length of time. Whereas frosts are visible, a freeze is not. It is possible to have a freeze situation with no frost. Now to be clear, I’m not a weather expert. These are just tidbits I’ve picked up over my years of gardening, and I am barely scratching the surface. There is a lot of information available and I definitely encourage you to get out there and learn as much as you please on this topic. Anything that helps us be better gardeners is a good thing!
Tomorrow I’ll go over some things that we can do to protect our plants and reduce the damage done, at least to the extent that we are able. Remember: mother nature wins! It’s her game and we can only show up and hope to do our best.
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