My thumb is not so green...
After my first day of covered plants, everything looked so perfect. All the little plants were looking perky and I walked away that night feeling so proud. Then day two happened...
It started out as a cold day...so I left the covers on that morning as I left to work out, planning to come back later and take them off when it was warmer...the problem is, it never really got warm that day. The wind was blowing, it was only about 50 degrees outside, and I was wearing my sweatshirt all day so I left them. At about 2 in the afternoon I realized I didn't really know what I was doing, so I visited the garden forum and asked a question about when to take the covers off. Fortunately, someone answered right away...and told me to go sit in my car and if it was hot I needed to hurry out there and take the covers off. UN-fortunately, that answer came a little too late. I went out to the car and found out it was a lot hotter in there than it was outside, so I ran out to take the plastic off and... sadly, my plants were cooked. There was even sweat dripping off them. If I'd been listening, I probably would have heard screaming as they died. Man, was I angry.
Later that night I got another response to my question in the forum. This person informed me that when the sun is shining, the temperature will average about 40 degrees warmer than the outside air...plus humidity. By the time I pulled the covers off my sad little plants, I had cooked them to death in a 100 degree wet sauna. Sad! For some odd reason, the strawberries survived... it was just the tomatoes and peppers that met an untimely demise. I'm sorry, wherever you are, my sad little sweating friends.
After listening to me berate myself for the rest of the evening for my horrible mistake, Patrick had finally had enough and got mad at me for being so down. After all, this is my first time and I really don't know what I'm doing... trial by error, I guess. So on Thursday I went to buy new plants. I could almost see them quivering in their little plastic cups--I think word had traveled fast and they all knew what I had done. I watered them and set them outside, promising I'll do my best this time not to torture them.
Gardening Lesson #1
You will kill more plants with heat than with cold. Best to err on the side of cool and vent the covers when in doubt.
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