Protecting plants from frost

The year before last, I lost most of my vegetables to frost in ONE night. Yep. I was heart broken. So for last Winter my grand kids brought me up lots of big plastic juice containers to put over the little seedlings. My son in law also bought me some plastic sheeting that you use when painting as a drop sheet. We had a morning in my garden erecting posts that I draped the sheets over at night to protect the plants in the vegetable garden.

The grand kids had fun putting the plastic bottles on the seedlings. No harm was done.

I put old cloths over the citrus trees and it worked too.

What do you all do?

Last winter was our first winter here and my first encounter with frost harsh enough to kill my vegie plants.

I have a makeshift tunnel up over one of my vegie beds to house the chooks which I am thinking of modifying to make a frost free area. Mostly though I'm trying to plant frost tolerant plants. I am also going to plant some non-frost resistant plants under larger kale and broccoli plants just to see if that will work - definitely in experiment mode.

Also, lots and lots of good quality mulch.

So judging by what you said in the chat thread about the oldies predicting a cold winter, will you be off to bunnings to buy some drop sheets, Jo?

You can buy frost cloth which looks like interface, but I know people who simply scatter hay over their tender plants. I am lucky that I don't think frost will be a problem where I am...

Yeah, thats why mulch will be important.

I'm not going to go with the plastic this year. I have a heat sink area against the shed which will be good for more fragile plants. I will probably leave the shadecloth up once I remove the chooks which will be pretty good protection. My dad also has a plan to help me build a mini glass house with some extra glass panels which were under the house, might try growing tomatoes through winter in ti

What a great idea and dad you have there, Jo. I love my toms and basil so I really miss them during the cold months. I grow basil in pots and bring them into the laundry at night in winter because I love it so much. The hot water heater keeps them warm.

Another great idea is watering well and setting buckets of water among the plants before covering.