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🥕 The Gardening Newsletter 🥕

The more you know, the more you grow!

December 2, 2025

A Winter Sneak Peak

Hi Reader!

I hope you had a THANKFUL Thanksgiving! I sure did. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.

I don't have much to say here. I just wanted to show you how I kept my fall garden alive during a couple of 'freakishly' freezing nights. What's going on? Mid-November and here in Zone 8 the night temperatures dipped down into the 20s for a few hours.

In this edition:

• The Problem
• The Solution
• The Results

THE PROBLEM

During the past five years I have certainly had to protect my garden from ice, snow, freezing temperatures, and wind.... but in JANUARY, not before THANKSGIVING!

This is truly an oddity for my area.

Anyway, since I have mostly green leafy vegetables growing, which are very cold hardy, I wasn't too concerned until I saw on my weather app that the 20-degree temperatures would linger for more than a couple hours. This meant that I the plants would surely freeze. It was very windy to so I knew I had to do something because my greens were already producing lots of meals for me.

For the past three weeks I've been stacking and chopping layers of Collards, Kale, Swiss Chard, Tatsoi, and Pak Choy for my meals. So yummy!

I pick a few leaves each from each plant and sauté them in Olive Oil or Coconut Oil. It's an easy, quick veggie.

THE TOOLS

Admittedly, I'm the 'Queen of Jerry-Rig'. Necessity is the queen of invention.... for real. Goodness knows for all the things I CAN do, I CANNOT build anything worthy. 😊 However, I had to gain some fast skills to save my plant babies.

I used Frost Cloth, Clear Tarp, Garden Stakes, Garden Clips, Spring Clips, and rocks/pavers from around the yard.

The goal was just to protect the plants from wind and hopefully keep the freezing temperatures from killing them.

I pulled all my potted trees into a grouping in the sunniest part of my yard and went to constructing. Here is what I came up with.

​

Yes, I know it looks like a junk yard, but I prefer to call it Shabby Chic. :). The clear tarp gives the perfect greenhouse effect. The top is open; it isn't totally sealed. The next day it was very sunny but still cold so I was able to leave the tarp on because of the top opening. When I put my hand inside it was much warmer than the 30-degree temps outside.

All the other plants were covered with the frost cloth.

THE RESULTS

After two days and two nights of being covered I was sure things would be okay but I was still a little nervous to see what I'd find. Sub-zero temperatures for too long will kill plants.

I slowly removed all the frost cloths and tarp, and this is is what I saw...

They were still green but they looked frozen to death. I think they will survive. I watered and fed them.

Later that day, after the temperatures warmed and the greens got some sun rays they almost looked normal again.

Hopefully, this will be our one and only freeze this season.

But it probably won't be.

Gardening Thoughts

Don't forget to rest! 💗

That's all I have for this edition. Feel free to write me at jangardener@gardenease.org if you have any questions or comments.

Forward this newsletter to anyone you think would be interested in gardening information and to SUBSCRIBE HERE.

I'll see you in the next edition!

Jan🤗

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If you have questions, comments, praises, complaints, or ideas about gardening or about the newsletter, you can reach me at: jangardener@gardenease.org