Frost Combat!

[furtech]

Frost protection: full Flickr set

Wow...two posts in one day! I had just gotten back from seeing "The Hobbit" and realized that this time the weather forecasters might be correct: although it's been threatening to go below freezing over the last few weeks, this is the first night that it might actually get that cold. Right now, with the wind chill it is already about 29f. The actual temperature is supposed to get to about freezing tonight and several degrees below freezing tomorrow. With a stiff North wind and clear skies (after some rain), I jumped in to action to protect some of my heat-loving charges.



While most of my garden is frost-hardy (mostly oak bonsai and maples), I have several plants that do not enjoy the cold. The Surinam Cherry trees are already getting ruddy-red (meaning cold-stress); the Tree Tomato is looking very sad and wilted; the chile peppers are doing surprisingly well considering temps in the low 40's and high 30's recently. The ones I worry about most are the finger lime trees: they are semi-tropical and even the cold-but-above-freezing temps have caused some yellow to show up in their leaves.

Since the Surinam Cherry trees are planted, I am trying an experiment with incandescent xmas lights and frost bags. They look quite festive. Ironic, since I never got a chance to put lights up this year.

I took the many chili plants and put them in a frost shelter. I love these things: they fold up like those car window shades (spring steel) and can be set up in minutes. I am attached to these chili pepper plants: they are about three years old now and I've managed to over-winter them for a few winters already. You should have seen the last frost-protection I tried: Cars, plastic sheets, heat lamps and I forget what else. One advantage of Los Angeles is that you can actually have plants live a lot longer than they normally do because of the mild winters. A hundred watt bulb in the shelter should keep it warm enough.

The Tree Tomato and the lime trees I brought inside. I have enough room in my entry way to set them (though I've already had to mop up a water leak). I'm just hoping that the nice, warm house doesn't release a hoarde of ants and other vermin into the house.

I also brought in the Red Habanero that has been fruiting with joy: I believe in meritocracy and such industriousness deserves a reward.

We'll see if this works out!

Comments

[vulpesrex.livejournal.com]

In the vicinity of Sacramento, it's been below freezing each night this week - frost on the roofs and lawns, a layer of ice on windshields at sunrise. Last night, I went out to see the encore of "Un Ballo in Maschara" (A NY Met Opera HiDef program), and it was raining lightly; this morning, everything had a glaze not of frost, but of ice. Doorlocks frozen, street with a "glare ice" or, in shady spots, "black ice".

About time that Winter showed up south of the Tehachapis! Hope your peppers survive; the blanket with the mechanic's trouble-light is a good idea, to keep things above freezing. In a pinch, double-walled corrugated cardboard boxes work well, too.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's a pop-up greenhouse. Very nice design-- sets up fast.

L.A. is home to a lot of plants that just can't take frost-- the banana trees are definitely suffering. Peppers are surviving; tree tomato not so much. Fortunately these frosts only occur once ever 5-10 years.

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

The temp keeps swinging here, going from cold enough to kill plants to warm enough to confuse them. One of our forsythias put out some blooms in December. that's a spring blooming plant :/

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that has been happening here, too. Poor plants-- at least it isn't as bad here as back east.

[martes.livejournal.com]

I love how festive the plants look with the Christmas lights!

[furtech.livejournal.com]

My neighbors are baffled: I put no xmas lights up in December...now two weeks into the new year, Xmas lights!

[iisaw.livejournal.com]

For a second, I thought that you'd hung chilli pepper-shaped lights on the pepper plant!. Clever idea,

[furtech.livejournal.com]

I learned this obliquely from Steve G.: it doesn't take a lot of heat to keep plants from freezing. The xmas lights are perfect: not hot enough to burn anything, but just hot enough to warm the leaves/plants. The frost sacks let rain and sunlight in, but also keeps the heat in at night.

[myknaki.livejournal.com]

It's gotten cold enough up here to freeze the well water transfer pump, so the kitchen tap will be left running tonight. We don't leave many plants outside, not so much for the cold, but because the deer like to browse at night.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

You live in a cold place. In L.A., the idea of leaving any tap on all night is inconceivable: all the water shortages we have mean that running the tap or using sprinklers to protect plants from freezing are out of the question (or at least, it never would occur to Angelenos!).

I have problems with rabbits and squirrels. The rabbits I will concede the lawn to, but the squirrels infuriate me (they steal seeds and seedlings and they're -really- persistant).

[myknaki.livejournal.com]

I used to live in Fremont north of San Jose, and yes, I wouldn't consider leaving the water running all night on a meter.

Coarsegold doesn't get much colder than the Central Valley floor. I'm at +/-2200' behind Chukchansi and the temp dropped to a low 27, but only got up to 38, because the hillside gets no sunlight during the winter. It snowed a bit on the 10th and it's still lingering in the shadows.

It turns out that leaving the water running wasn't enough to stop the pump from freezing up, but it thaws out around 10:30 with no apparent issues. I'll be talking with the property management company about insulating the pump and running an extra pipe heater there, since this wouldn't be acceptable if I had to shower in the morning for work.

I'll take the tree squirrels over the ground squirrels.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Haha! Coarsegold! That's a beautiful place to live. I drive through there several times a year: I have a good friend who lives ten minutes up the road from the casino. When I post pics of border collies and sheep, that's where I am!

You might want to consider the xmas tree lights wrapped around the pump and covered with a sack or tarp on it to keep the heat in: you'd be surprised at how effective this can be. Just make sure they're the incandescent lights, not the LED's.

[myknaki.livejournal.com]

I'm renting a 4 bed/3 bath on 6 acres for cheap. Maybe we could meet at the casino or in Oakhurst for a meal sometime?

I'll be using a heating pad I have laying around if the property management company doesn't address the issue. I know LED's don't put out any heat.

[vulpesrex.livejournal.com]

As a totally incidental thought - in the very near future, there won't be any 100w incandescent bulbs soon (of the common variety, at least; I don't know how long floodlight-style bulbs, commonly used for outdoor floods and bathroom heatlamps will be available).

What would we do then for improvised heat-tent, such as you are using? For that matter - does the demise of the standard Incandescent bulb mean the Death of the "Easy-bake Oven"?

I have a problem which I run into rather often at work; in the offices which employ large percentages of women, We find small personal heaters, of the 1200w variety, plugged in under desks in office cubicles - this is because for most of the women, whether or not they are wearing skirts, the room temperature feels too cold for their legs.

This in itself is not a problem; what is a problem is that most cubicles have a very limited number of electrical outlets, and rather "low order" receptacles and internal panel wiring, at that. And there are too many office devices for most of the outlets, resulting in the use of 4- and 6-port surge suppressor strips - meant for PCs and Monitors - as extension cords and "power strips".

One particular model, which we bought thousands of, has a small circuit protector which is supposed to trip when the capacity of the suppressor is overloaded; but I have found these things under desks, where the outlet into which a personal deater has been plugged in, has melted and charred around the plug, the heat conducting up the brass prongs and carbonising the plugs, so that they are at once a burn hazard, a shock hazard, and a fire hazard, all at once.

Having said that - these floor heaters are small enough and cheap enough, that it might be possible to get ahold of a used one or two, and fabricate some sort of a "manifold" to put on the exaust-side, which feeds into plastic hoses, similar to what was used for portable hair-dryer caps or small vacuum cleaners, and distribut the hot air to various tents or boxes covering your plants. Boxes could be fed serially, inteconnected by these hoses, or by a bunch of hoses radiating from your "manifold"; radiating like the legs of an octopus. Either way, there would need to be an exhaust hole on the far side of each tent or box, to allow air-flow; as heat rises, the exhaust hole or "port would need to be near the bottom of the enclosure, and preferably oriented so that warm air has to pass over/through the plants to be protected before venting out.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Oh, it rarely gets that cold for that long down here. If they stop making incandescent bulbs, I can always use a heating pad or some such. And I doubt they'll ever completely eliminate that type of light: too ubiquitous. Plus-- Ebay!

The electrical problem you have is terrifying: the fire danger is bad. You should take one of the fused power strips and prominently display it at the employee entrance as a warning (leave the heater plugged into it for extra significance).

[vlen.livejournal.com]

Those lil chilli peppers look delish! :D