It's Not Summer Yet! New England and Atlantic Coast States To Get Hit With Freezing Temperatures

This Memorial Day weekend is going to bring unseasonable (but probably becoming more common in the near future) cold weather--i.e., freezing or lower--to most areas of New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Obviously the concern here is for garden plants and fruit trees. Here are some articles discussing how to protect plants from frost:

• "How to Protect Plants From Frost Damage" from Gardening Know How.
•  "Protecting Your Plants in a Freeze", another article from Gardening Know How.
• "How to Protect Plants from the Cold" at Wiki How.
• "How to Protect Plants from Frost" from Marin Master Gardners at the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
• "Protect Plants from Frost" at Sunset magazine.
• "Frost Protection"--a PDF from the University of Arizona Extension Office.
• "How to Protect Your Garden from Frost and Freeze" from Today's Homeowner.
• "Fruit: protecting from frost" from the Royal Horticulture Society.
• "Freeze damage depends on tree fruit stage of development: Damage from freezes depends on the development stage of the fruit crop. These tables allow you to quickly asses the risk for your tree fruit crops" from the University of Michigan Extension Office.
• "Frost Protection for Fruit Crops" -- a PDF from the Iowa State University Extension Office.

If you are covering your plants, it is important that the covering (especially if using plastic) not touch the plant as it will transmit the cold to the leaves or parts being contacted, and may be worse than having no cover. You can build a frame to hold the covering; or, as the Sunset magazine article suggests, if you lack time, put a patio chair or something similar over the plant to hold the covering.