Our last frost date is 3-30 yet magically we have a freeze warning from 1am-9am Wednesday bearing down on the garden. Anything you find works better than others for veg? I was thinking about putting plastic sheet over a trellis or 30.
Mulch like straw or hay on the roots and cardboard boxes over the top. I had that 20 ° with freezing rain, then 2" snow in late January. I covered my potatoes and everything but my peas and other not tender plants in the veg garden with cardboard boxes. Set a brick on top and all survived.
Place a few old steel cans around your plants with hot burning coals in them. Preferably under a trellis draped with plastic sheet. As that will give extra CO2 (carbon dioxide) to the plants. Which they will appreciate a lot during daylight hours, (as they convert it into oxygen, and utilize the carbon to grow bigger). Or you could dig long pits besides your plants, and just put burning coal in it. Then have a coal walking party, (if there are any daredevils among your friends). https://youtube.com/shorts/iPz6RjqlG5s?si=R9_59_Jig6zCxwxh
I am sure the H in S-H stands for Hollywood. Not a big cold snap though, 6 or so hours, and judgement on the county by county nomination our position to the extreme south hopefully puts us below the frost line actual. Fingers crossed, here it comes!
A few years ago I had about 30 potted plants outside set in their locations, when a frost came for 3 days at night. So I grouped them all up together on the lawn and covered them with a frost blanket. Everything survived but IDK if it was the blanket or just luck. It said the blanket was supposed to raise the temp under it by like 8 degrees. Who knows.
In my part of the world, it's not frost but instead a heatwave - Which burns all plants to a crisp. So that's the opposite end of the spectrum... However protecting delicate plants is the same. As it's all about shielding them from outside temperatures. Until the extreme weather lasts, which can sometimes be just for a few hours, and sometimes will last for a few weeks. So logically speaking, a plastic sheet is the cheapest option. In which we use misting to keep plants cool, and sometimes feed in cool air from the AC. Where you can use a small electric heater with a fan to keep your plants warm. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, just enough to make a noticeable difference in temperature. And your plants will be happy.
Guilty as charged! But I haven't started this project yet... I just bought these Peltier effect cooling tiles for now - From which I'll be making a solid state AC. Yes it'll be inefficient in comparison to a conventional AC, (very power hungry). But here the advantage will be that I'll have no moving parts. So nothing to wear out and break down, (literally maintenance free). Plus I have surplus energy during the day from my solar panels. So why not use it! Therefore this AC will have a very long service life, so it'll be something like install and forget about it. Leave it on auto, and never need to do anything again.
A sure way of making sure everything survives the frost. Is basically a plastic tunnel, within which you place a cheap heater fan of some type.
