AHH!! Unforseen Late May snow! How to save my tomatoes?!?

[Contrariety]

Mamas! HELP me out! I woke up to SNOW! SNOW! on my tomato and pepper plants!!! WTF? It's almost June! ONly showers were forcast, so I certainly didn't see it coming or else I would have protected them! What can I do? Am I just screwed? Can I dig them out and try to bring them inside? Most of them have only been in the ground for barely a week, so they'd come out easily, I'm sure. Thoughts?? OMG! I'm so upset!

[mollipop]

Tomatoes are pretty hardy (not sure about peppers, but I've heard they're similar). Two years ago, Hurricane Ike blew through here and uprooted tomato plants in my friend's garden. A few days after the Hurricane, she just went out and stuck them back in the ground. They were fine. I'd just take them out, put them in pots, and re-transplant.

[springbabes]

I can't believe the weather we're having! I haven't transplanted my tomatoes and peppers into the garden yet because we're moving this weekend but they were sitting on the patio, hardened off already. I was in tears this morning thinking they were dead. I brought them in and dusted the snow off and they seem ok now.

The high is supposed to be in the 50s today so if I were you I would probably clean the snow off the leaves and pour warm water around the base of the plants to warm them up.

If your plants are dead, you can come help yourself to some of mine (that is if mine end up surviving). I have way too many--San Marzanos, Brandywines, cherry tomatoes, all kinds of peppers. I live in American Fork.

[lunarlady]

Cover, cover, cover! Push some stakes into the ground, throw a clear tarp over the top, weight the edges and you have an instant greenhouse. If it is supposed to be super cold, put some buckets of water under there too as a heat sink. I've used this method before and it works great. Much easier than digging them all up. I use the cheep clear plastic that is sold as painting drop cloths. Good luck!

[springbabes]

So, how are your plants?

[Contrariety]

they made it! i brushed all the snow off of them and covered the smallest plants with empty pop bottles (which i had to scrounge out of the dumpster because i threw them away because i thought it was warm enough for tomatoes, silly me. A few plants have a bit of frost bite, but most look just fine. I was soooo worried! I have something like 50 tomato, pepper, and eggplant that I didnt' want to have to buy again!!

springbabes, I totaly started tearing up yesterday morning when I opened my blinds to see my raised beds completely covered in snow! I'm in Lehi by Thankgiviing point so I know better than to plant them too early, lest they get killed by the ridiculous wind, but COME ON! It's the end of May!