My Chicago Garden

Well the NWS forecast was off by at least 10 degrees maybe even 20.  We had what is called a hard freeze (see below) this morning, not a first frost.  The remaining tomato and pea plants are showing signs of damage even though I covered them with a plastic tarp. And even the tomatoes in the cold frame are showing leaf damage on the leaves closest to the glass.

I don’t how how cold it got exactly as I lost my outdoor weather station and cold frame weather station during the night. I don’t know why.  It could be because of the batteries I installed (rechargeable). They may not function in the cold. If they drop out tonight again then I’m positive it’s the batteries.  Things fixed themselves about 10am in the morning when the temperature got back above 45.

Here’s a picture of the garden this morning around 730am. You can see the remaining frost on the garden.

The cold frame isn’t doing squat to protect the plants inside except keeping the humidity high. The temperature is the same inside as outside when the sun goes down. There must be too much air leakage around the window frames and air vent. I’ll have to look into that soon. Too late to do anything now.

 October 28th is the first frost for 2007. And man was it a wicked one to start the winter.

Hard Freeze
A term to describe temperatures that drop below 32° F and remain there for several hours, typically killing all vegetation.