With a hard freeze approaching the region, local agricultural officials are advising residents to take immediate steps to protect vulnerable plants and early blooming trees.
Clay County Extension Ag and Natural Resources Agent Wyatt Montooth said homeowners should safeguard their gardens from the sudden drop in temperatures. The recent shift from warm weather to freezing conditions poses a specific threat to cool season vegetables and early budding fruit trees.
“It’s one of those things, the weather in Tennessee is liable to do anything, you know, and we’re seeing evidence of that right now,” Montooth said. “It’s one of those odd freezes that you don’t think it’s going to happen. We had some flirting with 80-degree weather, now we’re dropping back down into 35, I believe my vehicle was showing me just a minute ago. So, it’s kind of a typical winter, you know, it might be a little bit out of the ordinary, but nothing unexpected.”
Moving small potted vegetable gardens indoors or into a safe structure can keep the frost off the plants, Montooth said. For outdoor gardens, watering the ground before the freeze helps roots absorb moisture and adds an extra layer of insulation before the water locks up in the soil. Homeowners can also push potted plants together and wrap the bases with plastic or burlap to protect the root systems.
“And then finally, if you’re able to do it, you really should look into covering your foliage, you know, with a blanket, sheets, just something to form a barrier to keep the wind, the rain and especially the coming frost off your plants,” Montooth said. “It’s going to provide a protective layer. Just be sure that you have air and have space over, that way the foliage of your plant is not in contact with your cover. Because if you’re going to be making contact it’s just going to soak in all that cold air and all that frost and it’s not going to do you any good. So make sure to provide space in between your cover and make sure it covers from the upper foliage of the plant all the way down to the root base.”
Adding mulch to the base of a plant acts as an insulator to maintain root structure and health. While top covers protect the sprouts from direct frost, combining both methods provides the most comprehensive defense against the cold.
“But if you want to really look and maintain kind of get an assessment of your damage, just take one, if you open up a little bud of your plant you see it’s nice and green looking you’ve survived and maintained not too much damage in it,” Montooth said. “But if you open one up and it looks like it’s black and burnt on the inside, you can see some damage.”
Before the sudden temperature drop, early blooming species like apple trees had already started to bud and blossom due to the warmer weather. If the freeze destroys these early buds, growers will lose a significant amount of fruit production, though the trees themselves will survive as long as their root systems remain intact.
“So if you can get out, add water and then add upper and lower cover through mulching and blanket sheet, you know, you’ll be ought to be in pretty good shape for your vegetables and your fruit trees,” Montooth said.
Residents will need to monitor their plants for wilted or shriveled leaves in the days following the freeze to determine the full extent of the frost burn.