We are supposed to go down to 31F next Tuesday. I cover some years and not others. I usually cover when frost is earlier than normal.

In a normal year, we have:

"You have a small 20% chance of getting 32° by September 29.
There is a 50% chance of being hit by a 32° frost starting around October 8
You have a 80% chance of seeing 32° by October 16
Said another way, you have a 1 in 5 chance at making it to that day without a 32° night."

I have lots of tomatoes on still, banana peppers, basil, Amorphophallus konjac and figs I may cover.

Do you guys cover your plants to avoid frost or not?

Is it worth covering for a month's more growth?

Keith

I don't cover plants. By now I usually have enough canned, frozen and dehydrated. We consider everything this month that we get a bonus and it it fresh out of the garden till the freezing does it in.

If they're still producing strong I'd cover. If they are pretty weak already, it might be worth the effort and might not help much anyways.

We have to cover this far north or we would get little produce. I've seen frost here Aug. 16. It was Aug. 28 or so this year. Everything has been done here for a while. Got down to 26 last night. It's a pain.

Not if your time and effort is > than what's left in yield

I cover with a bed sheet but if you have alot of green tomatoes I pull the plant up by the roots and hang upside down in a insulated building they eventually ripen

I usually cover if it's just 1 or 2 nights were supposed to have but if it's going to for a few nights I just let them go.

I will cover tomato plants if they are still looking healthy and there is only a night or two of cold weather in the two week forecast. Otherwise, it's over and I pick all my green tomatoes and bring the in to ripen. I have a couple of butternut squash I am still nursing along, another week and I should be good. Our forecast doesn't show a freeze for another 10 days. One night at 33, but my garden has some overhead protection, so I will pick what's ready and risk it with what's not quite ready.

Never in the fall. Due to our long growing season both the plants and us are pretty much tired of each other, lol.

Seriously the tomatoes that pulled through the heat will be looking pretty ragged. Peppers get pulled, summer squash is long gone, beans will be in worse shape than the tomatoes.

But the winter garden will already be in and big enough that a frost won't faze them. Collards, cabbage, turnip and mustard greens, rutabaga all do well in our winters.

Come spring I cover the early blooming blueberries.