Friday, May 18, 2007

Frost Watch 2007 - Day 4

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Common purple violet - Pretty Plant Interlude



So far, so good with all plants present and accounted for. The lowest temperature last night was 2C at 4am according to The Weather Network. I just happened to be up at 5am... and can confirm that there was indeed patchy frost - kudos to Enviroment Canada.


Tonight's Forecast:


Environment Canada (last night's winner) 3C with risk of frost

The Weather Network 8C


Walls o' water for cheapskates (like me)

I do try and keep my addiction to gardening as painless as possible to my sig other, including talking about it sparingly and spending only a reasonable amount of money on it.

Walls of water, for the unitiated, are plastic contraptions with two walls which you fill in between with water and put around your tender plants.

You can recreate this by making a circle of 2L pop bottles, filled 3/4 with water, and attached together with duct tape (as per this person's suggestion).

Or if you have a lot of tomatoes to protect, try this fantastic idea:

"I always thought filling 1000+ soda bottles for 150 tomato plants would be time
consuming so I just stick the bottom of a clear 55gal garbage bag over an
inverted tomato cage, let it drape to ground level and then doubled over itself
back to the top. When you put water in it(between layers)with a hose only use
5-6 gal. even though it will seem like little. Its the amount of water that
matters, not the height on the cage. After your plants outgrow the cage,poke the
bags and reuse them for garbage (that won't leak). "

Found further down on DIY WOW post.



Links:

A discussion on the pros and cans of WOWs (Walls of Water).
A study about frost protection of hot caps and WOWs