Need help for tonight! Too cold for seedlings?

[greeny]

We live just outside Chicago.

We planted our seedlings (started from seeds in our basement and hardened over the past few weeks) in the ground today. (We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, Swiss chard, carrots, green beans.)

And I just learned that tonight it's supposed to go down to a low of 39 F.

Is that too cold for our babies? If so, what can I do to protect them?

[Rebecca]

Cover them with plastic sheeting or a tarp if you have it. Or a sheet propped up a little. They'll probably be fine

If your recycle bin is full, cut off the end of milk jugs/2 liter bottles and plop the hole over your plant to cover it.

[Rhiannon Feimorgan]

Up, cover them with whatever you can. In addition to the above, cardboard boxes overturned can be a good frost cover.

If there is no way you can cover them, having the sprinkler going on them can help keep them from freezing although you would go through a lot of water keeping the sprinkler going all night.

[onthemove]

greeny, how did your plants make out? are they still predicting more cold weather?

Rhiannon, I heard you had a snow storm last night/this morning! We left yesterday morning and it was beautiful. Hope your plants are alright.

[greeny]

The cold didn't seem to bother them, but some are not perking up as much as I'd like. The chard is lying down on the soil, as are the carrots (but they're still the right colors - nice green for carrots, reddish and green for chard).

Two of the tomatoes look gorgeous, but the other two are really wilty.

The cukes and peppers are awesome (except something ate four of our eight pepper plants!!!!).

Green beans are doing well.

Luckily the weather should be warm from here on out (I hope), and there's still time to buy seedlings from the nursery if these don't make it.

[Rhiannon Feimorgan]

Originally Posted by onthemove

greeny, how did your plants make out? are they still predicting more cold weather?

Rhiannon, I heard you had a snow storm last night/this morning! We left yesterday morning and it was beautiful. Hope your plants are alright.

I did wake up to 3 inches of snow. I felt like crawling back into bed and never coming back out. It's still snowing now actually but it's melting faster than it comes down so there is less snow on the ground then there was last night.

We had just taken the winter tires off the van last week.

I don't have anything tender outside yet. Just tough things like peas and lettuce. I've learned my lesson in past years and nothing that can't survive a frost or a bit of snow goes out until June.

My neighbor on the other hand had just planted out a bunch of tomatoes and her beans were just up. I hope she had everything covered well. Maybe she'll listen to me next year.