Heller Greenhouse260-238-4040

I got too excited about my first attempt at gardening and now the notoriously unpredictable weather in Oklahoma threatens to kill my plants.

I planted mostly herbs along with some strawberry, cayenne pepper and beefsteak tomato plants.

The strawberry plants and most of the herbs are fine, but some of the leaves on the basil, pepper and tomato plants are turning mushy and/or brown or black. I have covered them with buckets and bowls from the house to protect them from the cold, but they still look damaged.

All told, there have been three full days of cold temperatures and this is the fourth. It may be another day until temperatures return to normal. Is there any reason to believe that some or all of my plants will recover from this, or am I totally screwed?

Note: So far there’s no serious damage to the stems, just the some of the leaves near the tops of the plants don’t look so good.
More info: There was only one night where temps dropped below freezing, and that didn’t last long. Even then there was no frost. Mostly it’s just been cold and kind of windy.

The plants are in the ground and have been for about a week. The basil seemed to have spread its roots pretty well and were flourishing before the cold hit.
Thanks for your help, guys. The weather is warmer now and it looks like most of the plants will be fine.

With the exception of a basil plant that lost about 75 percent of its leaves, most of the other plants should get along fine. I’ve removed the buckets and bowls and pinched off any damaged leaves so the plants won’t waste a lot of energy trying to repair them.

It’s encouraging that I was able to save them. Thanks again!

Yup your screwed!
I would wait a few weeks and re-start with healthy looking plants from your local nursery. The tomatoes and peppers I am sure are goners.
Even if they did come back from the roots everything I have read says they won’t be as good as they could have been before the freeze.

Oh yeah and I have heard good things about the arkansas travelers variety of tomatoes.

I do want to share with you my favorite gardening web site.

www.gardenweb.com
They have a Oklahoma gardening forum for us okies to talk to each other.

I live in TN. So, far we have had about 2 weeks of warm weather (60s & 70s) before spring even set in. Last year, our winter ended right around this time also unlike past decade where cold weather ( < 60F) would last through April. So, should I wait a little longer or can I go ahead and start my flower gardening now?

You can start now but the ideal weather will be around a month or month n a half away. I live in southern IN and started planting last week. For your state the zone is April thru or March thru June. I cant tell exactly on the map on the back of this seed pack but it looks like your safe to start planting now.