Garden Emergency | $3 Walmart Hack To Save Your Crops
Join us on a wild weather ride as we tackle the unexpected late April freeze hitting Southeast Michigan. From scrambling to protect our precious crops to strategizing to save delicate fruit tree blossoms. We'll take you through the highs and lows of battling frosty temperatures, sharing tips and tricks along the way. Get ready to learn how to safeguard your garden hoses, shield your plants with blankets, and assess the freeze aftermath. Let's dive into the world of gardening resilience together! 🌱❄️ #GardenSurvival #LateAprilFreeze #gardeningtips
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Garden Emergency | Overnight Freeze Survival Guide
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I have had great success using 'flannel backed vinyl tableclothes' here in NW Ohio to protect our blueberries, strawberries and grapes. Our fruit trees, which are old and too large to cover, we spray down with water before sunrise.
You are protecting your blue berries from the weather while I'm protecting mine from the birds! God bless y'all and keep growing.
It's alot of work, but worth it. I've spent every night for a week, wrapping and covering plants and berries. Lots of clothpins, cause we also get wind. I've learned to cage my blueberries every winter, cause the bunnies love the new growth. Those fleece blankets are 1.99 after Thanksgiving at Menards every year. I have bought so many for dog blankets, but they sure come in handy for plants!
When our fruit trees were in bloom and we were expecting a freeze we would set up a sprinkler and spray the trees and that saved our fruit production.
So I’ve heard that people that that have gardens and all that in your area, the safe zone is after Mother’s Day more people are starting to follow that
At the end I thought you were going to say, Come along with us and help fold all these blankets 😄
I wish it was that easy. Could use some help over here 😀
Living in Michigan, I can't plant before Mothers day, ever. And the last 2 years it was mid June,due to frost/freezes that happened. My cold hardy go out on or after Mothers day. Even the Amish up here don't have their cabbage in yet.
I used to live in Michigan. My greens went out in May/June and I harvested them with the first frost. Now that I’m in Texas, I’ll put them out in august
I’m from Michigan and I started my cabbage a month ago and they are growing strong . Western Michigan
See you all in the morning! You two are such good stewards of the land ❤🙏❤️ great work!
So glad you mentioned the Walmart throws. I never thought of getting a few of them for my garden. We live in Canada and get frost often. Two days ago we got snow flurries. It all melted as it hit the ground, so nothing was damaged. I can just leave a few in the garden shed just in case.
my peas are not coming up well either, my worry is my peach trees, I am sure again just like last year I will not get peaches but I protected best I could on ways or hards use. my strawberries also all bloomed, I'm in wayne county michigan so we got the freeze as well. I used the water my tree down method.
Hi Rachel. Living anywhere is going to have some type of bad weather. Between the frost, wind and rain can do damage to your garden. But what you did Rachel was genius of you to put blankets to your beautiful plants. They are doing amazing. Keep up the good work Rachel and Todd. God Bless you both. HUGS 🤗. Mari'a. 🤗🤗😎❤️❤️❤️❤️👋👋👋😎😎😎🌺🌸🌼
I am so relieved that things didn't go as badly as it could have and I look forward to seeing how things are at harvest time. I'm more saddened about your peas.. it's not too late, just plant new ones in and there's plenty of season left
I never Granny Smith blossom were that gorgeous! I sure hope has much as possible survives🤞
Wait & see!!! I believe some of the open blossoms will be OK🙏💖🙏 we had recent cold & snow here (Denver area) after my pear tree started blooming, but I swear I think everything is OK! It wasn’t as long a duration cold-wise as you were dealing with, but the tree is so big there was no trying to protect it. Best of luck dears!!! Thanks for sharing your journey-the good the bad and the beautiful!!!
Great Job!!! I spray my fruit trees with water and liquid fish fertizer on the branches and it really increases bud growth tremendously!
We got briefly got down to 25.3 this week. Central Ohio. I have nothing out there to worry about so I am not worried. Just saw your strawberries. So, I don’t have nothing. The strawberries have been blooming for 10 days. I saw bees on them today.
I never cover my strawberries and they are always fine unless they go under snow for multiple weeks.
Ahhh, Good ole Michigan weather! It’s spring time. ❤
Great idea with the small blankets 🎉 You can use heavy plastic over those also❤... even during severe weather!
I use rubber bands to "tie" the ends of blankets together when we cover shrubs.
This is why I have never been able to grow plums here in mid-MO.
I learned a valuable lesson about blueberries last year. It got down to 4 degrees. Blueberries were in full bloom. I covered them and lost every berry except the ones the cover blew off of. No more covering them for me.
I'm in southern Wisconsin, I have blueberry blooms too, its quite early. They went through a freeze recently, pre-bloom. I piled leaves over them all. 👍 I've had them in grow bags for 5 years. Handy to be able to move them together and cover. I love blueberries too! ❤
Plastic grocery bags!! You can cover lots of branches, plus use sheets as well. You should get a roll of frost cover from like growers solutions. That stuff is great. It comes in a 10 by 100 roll. Plus get some claims or close pins for securing the blankets, plastic bags and/or frost cover. I'm up in Kalkaska County so we are a few weeks away from planting out. But it's that time of year and we have to keep an eye on the weather daily. Thanks for sharing. God bless and protect.
I didn’t realize it was supposed to get this cold so in the morning I sprayed my plants with hose water before the sun got to the flowers and hostas and phlox and strawberries. Watering the frost off the plants really really helped. The blueberry farms around here had their sprinklers going for the nite.
May I make a suggestion! Why not use cloths pins to help you close the blankets?
Those work well! When my trees were little I used sheets (doubled if I could), and clothes pins to connect at the bottom.
I’m currently watching you wrap up your fruit trees and wanted to share what we do to protect our magnolias!! I planted them on the north side of my house so they need lots of protection from the north winter winds. We have leftover pieces of rebar from a project that we use with thick plastic (I think the plastic was from an old paint project). We stick the rebar in the soil to make “teepee” like posts, then wrap the plastic around the rebar posts and use metal clamps to fasten it. Then you tie up the top like a Santa toy bag. It works beautifully!!
When we cover our trees or bushes we use clothespins to attach the sheets or blankets.
Thank you! 70’s up here in upper northern Michigan! But chilly today and tonight! No garden yet!
Mine was just getting buds on it but the cherry tree had full blooms I looked at it yes we lost a lot bummer . Sad 😢 the other fruit trees so far look good and are now opening up . 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏Bless you all
So glad everything seemed to make it!! The only thing I have planted is my onions and some new herbs. I thankfully only had to cover the tender herbs. I knew my onions would be okay because I left some in the garden over winter and they are doing great. I know I sure hope the freeze warning days are over because I really want to plant my cabbage, but here in Illinois...it just isn't safe until around Mother's Day.
I like to use cloth pins to help hold the covers in place on whatever I am covering.
great idea!
Where l am we are having some days l run the a c ,the weather is so unpredictable surprises the meteorologists too often.😊
You can Also try spraying the blossoms w water. I've done this w my peaches and have had successfully harvested peaches😊😊
Thank goodness you had your foot on that hose! 😂
I learned that lesson a couple years back, when it whacked me - and rubbed it in afterwards by soaking me.
Use clothes pins, that may work.
I'm really surprised you fleece your strawberries. I've had mine go under snow and come back out with a few black tips on leaves and just keep going. Blossoms drop but still produce berries and no big deal. Only thing I am concerned that I may have lost was my peaches.... it got the few blossoms I had and the buds look gray now. Cherry didn't even seem phased. But this is my off year on peaches too. Was hoping the pruning I did on the peaches would help even it out, but we'll see if the blossoms I had had were found and pollinated before they dropped.
Thank you for this warning I just covered up my strawberries.. I just planted my blackberry bush I’m hoping it will survivr
You can try putting insulated foil bags for picnics/meats or even double stronger hessian bags over the ends of the branches! Worked for us. Probably too late now but in case it helps in the future x
For next year collect some toques for the ends of the fruit tree branches
I love seeing the fruit blooms! I seen something tall may like, if you like Plums. I just purchased 2 bare root Dwarf Shiro yellow plum trees. It would be a good pop of color added to your orchard.
You can wrap or lay down: burlap, cardboard, tarps, paper bags. Buy inexpensive winter row cover, it's not that expensive and can be used over and over again (available in various thicknesses for different temperatures and various lengths), it's worth it and so fast to lay down or drape around trees/shrubs/plants. Someone said wrap saran wrap around items but I'm not sure if that would work or not?
Seran wrap works ,
Black Friday every year Menards runs the blankets for $1. That’s where and when I pick mine up.
Those are beautiful little blossoms ,especially the granny smith l hope there wont be alot of damage .l am concerned about the blueberries ,l know you hate to lose those. Keep us posted guys,😮
hank you. Planted fruit trees 4 years ago and frost has killed all the blooms except for this year, bumper crop.
Great coverage for the freeze! I use clothespins to secure them.
That’s a great idea to make a blanket cover the blossoms! I am going to try this instead of the set up I’ve used in the past.
Good job you two, fingers crossed
I have a frost cover that fits two Greenstalks and I tucked them both in. I live in Waterford and we got down to 27. The cover worked very well. It isn't the insect one but a heavier duty one that GS sells. My strawberries are in bloom, lettuce coming up, bok choy all did well except for one basil plant. Mary Born, ND
Hey, socks!!!….put socks over your fruit tree blossoms…over each blossom covered branch…best wishes!!
Peas are fine to restart again, I plant several times throughout the summer, mine are 8 inches now , I will plant more in a few weeks to continue to harvest till fall
Thank you for the advice on using fleece and wool. I had been using sheets and they didn't work. We have another month of random freezes to look forward to. So I will be taking that advice and visiting walmart. 😍
I hope your plants survive!
Hello, I used clothes pins to secure the blankets and or frost cover. They work well.
Try Wando peas next year. They are supposed to be heat tolerant as well as cold tolerant. I’m growing it for the first time this year North TX zone 8b) and it’s done spectacular so far this year. I will get a huge harvest from a 6x3 bed. They germinated in 40 degree weather, no problem. I’m going to plant another bed, just to see how they do in the heat of our summer.
So far so good. Hope you have a wonderful garden.
Pinchy clothespins would hold your blankets together in a breeze. We are east of you in the northeast. It was low 20's the past 2 or 3 nights here. Thrift stores should have some fleece blankets too. Hope you get a good fruit crop this year, in spite of the freezes.
I'm picturing the old time vinyards building fires in the isles and everyone with the wings on their arms fanning the heat around. you would need more people.... lol
We have had a full moon and with this it always brings the cold air, next week is looking better
10 day outlook, shows lowest temps around 48F
I am in SW Idaho and we almost always have to deal with freezing temperatures on our fruit blossoms, especially our apricot. This year we have had amazingly warm temperatures, so no worries. We should have abundant crops of all our fruit, unless we get a lot of fireblight on the apple and pears like we did last year. Our trees are too big to cover them with anything. Things we have tried are propane heaters under the trees, sprinklers under trees during the coldest time of the night. There is a product I have sprayed on them called KDL that can give the blossoms a few degrees of resistance to a freeze. I think most fruit blossoms can withstand cold temps down to about 28 before they have too much damage. And wind helps too. Oh, also, the phase of the blossom makes a difference. The less open they are, the hardier they are.
If I laid a blanket over something in my yard, I'd never see it again! It's windy here, so everything has to be weighted down or attached in some way.
Michigan weather is so unpredictable…good luck….
We are having wind gusts up to 15,18 miles per hour and my young pea and tomato plants are being bomb barded today.😢
we really want that blueberry cookie recipe!
🐝Thanks for the great video🌻
We had a freeze the other day but even though we’re in the 60’s/70’s/80’s during the day it’s cold when it drops to 50 in down to 35. But everything else is cold tolerant so they were fine. I did cover my tomatoes and peppers.
Glad everything survived the freeze.
Always prepare for the worse and pray for the best. You make a good team.
Best frost blanket on the planet I have used for years is the Planket..They come in different sizes and you can cut them to fit. I am in Utah we have many deep freezes up until end if June. I am at 5800 high altitude. Plankets have always got me through
You should also deep water before the freeze.
If you have any old Christmas lights that get warm, if you can put them on some plants, it'll help.
You should call the ones that you end up with in July “tartan blueberries “.
Yea? We went from +13 to -18 in northern Ontario and the cold cold was gone for 2-3 weeks so that was intense! That's Celsius of course ! Thank goodness my berries weren't blooming yet, they just started emerging so all was well...I tarped my turnips and carrots..lettuce and they all made it lol
Yes... the frost and/or freeze scramble! We struggled to tie our covers too then discovered that rubber bands on the gathered corners worked quite well LOL! Praying that you will still see a good harvest. Blessings on your day Kiddos! 🌻🐛Carolyn in Ohio 🌿
We use clothes pins.
I live further North in MI I think. My apple tree hasn't budded out yet and my last frost date is May 28. So Memorial Day weekend is garden time Herr. My grandmother always told us not before Memorial Day. (We have actually had frost in early June and had to throw sheets over garden.
Why don’t you on the nibbled blueberries use soda bottles like Coke that will protect them from wind and the freezing weather.
Miss my blueberries.
I struggled with the same thing with my garden last week here in northern AZ it happens every year one unexpected freeze comes I lost all my aloe for a second time. My fault,but it still sucks
I was hoping for a good report on the clematis. I’ve struggled for several years trying to get one to bloom. Finally last year a beautiful white with pink stripe down each petal. I hope for more this year 🤞
Ii have been noticing our weather in Manitoba Canada, is pretty much the same as yours, so.far this year. Mind you you have leaves on the trees, we do not. May be, clothes pins would work securely to secure the blankets.
I'M In NH !
Hi I cling filmed my fruit trees when i cut them back To protect them from the frost I heard it called siran wrap ,plastic wrap but here we call it cling film It really worke wrapped around where we cut trees
A gardener told me about the seran wrap after he pruned my fruit trees ,he told me to wrap them It worked
I pushed it up here in st Helen I kept covering with towels but did lose flowers and my zucchini 🫤 rookie mistake. 😬
Have you considered horticultural fleece? It's easy to find in the UK, not sure about the US.
I was looking at the 14 day forecast and it looks like another possibility of super cold night on may 10. 😢
Rachel, how many rotations of green peas are you able to get in Michigan?
What clan are those bluberries from? 🤞 for the harvest. X
What clan? Most came from here: www.indianaberry.com/blueberries/blueberry-collections.html But they can't seel / ship to Michigan anymore. So we need to find a new source.
Would small windmills protect your crops from frost if they turned on automatically at a certain temperature? I know grape growers use them! 😊
Rachel, i noticed your greenstalks staked up when Todd was blowing out the hose. Do you take them down each yr.?
Plastic sandwich baggies stapled or zip tied or bread tied to the apple tree around the buds
What is your mason jar cake mix. Do you have a video? Thanks
of course kzhead.info/sun/ral6kbSbiKijd3k/bejne.htmlsi=svYdiZT0SoIj3RlX
Have you heard of using the heat from lights (non-LED Christmas or spot lights) to keep the freeze and frost from damaging plants???? I heard about this, but didn’t know if anyone has had luck? What did you use?
we just used blankets, as shown in the video
🤗💞
how did the clematis do ???
Oh it seems to have made it
Geoengineering. It's the new normal