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.

[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 :/

[martes.livejournal.com]

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

[iisaw.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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.

[vlen.livejournal.com]

Those lil chilli peppers look delish! :D