Even best gardeners are eagerly awaiting the onset of spring in order to quickly start planting plants, wishing to ensure a quick harvest. Seeds and seedling are planted in open ground using various methods of warming the earth: they spill the ground with hot water, heat the earth with bonfires, and lay a layer of manure and straw along the bottom of the planting pit (like a greenhouse).
But all the tricks can go down the drain if nature does not spoil the weather, spring frosts are especially dangerous for plants planted in the open ground. The spring sun is deceptive, in an instant it can hide behind the leads clouds, and the chilling wind and cold rain cross out all hopes of an early harvest. Sometimes the weather services warns of frosts, but these forecasts are not always accurate and timely. This article is all about how to independently predict the onset of frost in the spring, how to protect garden plants from spring cooling.
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Forewarned Is Forearmed
This winged expression belongs to Caesar, but it can be taken as a motto for all gardeners who practice early planting of seedlings in open ground.
How to independently determine that frost can occur without relying on the weather service? Everything is very simple – you need to monitor the temperature in your area. This must be done in a special way, but there is nothing complicated in observing the temperature.
Signs of cooling- The calm, calm weather established in the evening, which is accompanied by a clearing. This may mean that the air temperature may drop significantly at night.
Independently monitor the thermometer marks – not enough for timely protection of the garden and the garden from frost, it is necessary to measure the air temperature on the site daily at certain hours.
How to protect the garden 3The thermometer is installed at a height of 2 meters above the ground using wooden poles. The temperature pillar is installed away from buildings, on top they arrange protection from rain and wind. It is useful to paint the design white to reflect the sun’s rays.
The temperature is measured daily at 13 p.m. and at 21 p.m., the readings are recorded in a journal, where the results of measurements are plotted vertically at 21 p.m., and the difference in temperature at 13 and 21 p.m. horizontally. Straight lines are mentally drawn from the marked points vertically and horizontally to determine the point of their intersection. If the intersection point of these lines is below the oblique line of 100%, then cooling is inevitable, if its position coincides on the graph between the oblique lines of 100% and 80%, freezing is very possible, etc. The lower the values of the graph, the less threat of frost threatens this area.
This method is suitable for those who live near their summer cottage and can daily monitor the temperature.
Frosts in the Spring Garden: Protection Measures
How to protect the garden? What to do for those who are used to relying on weather services? What measures will help protect the plantings from spring disasters?
It is known that the flower buds of fruit crops cannot tolerate a decrease in air temperature from minus 3.5 ° C to 4 ° C. If cooling is unavoidable, blooming trees must be protected from low temperature.
Blooming flowers are threatened by death when the temperature drops to 1.5–2 ° С, and fruit ovaries can die at –1 ° С.
You can protect the garden during the onset of frost with the help of smoke screens, for which they make bonfires in the garden, making sure that the smoke envelops the trees.
Warm smoke able to increase air temperature up to + 2C, which is enough to protect the garden from freezing.
Smoke heap is made from prekra straw, sawdust, leaf litter, manure, moss, cut tree branches, the main thing is that the fire can burn for at least 2 hours. It is necessary to ensure slow combustion with a large smoke formation, which is possible when raw materials are added to the fire.
To protect the entire area of the garden, it is useful to calculate the number of burning piles; for 50 m2 of planting, it is enough to arrange 1-2 bonfires.
Spring frosts are insidious, they can occur after weeks of steady heat, so you need to prepare for them in advance. Smoke heaps must be prepared well in advance using branches from spring pruning of trees and shrubs, prepared manure and other materials.
How to make a smoke pile?
- Length (width) – from 1.25 to 1.5 m.
- Height – from 0.5 to 0.75 m.
Dry, quickly burning materials fit in the middle: dry straw, paper, cardboard, dry sawdust. Raw materials for a fire are laid on top of them and from the sides: manure, peat, thick branches, spruce branches, covering the pile with a layer of earth. For the exit of smoke and ignition, special holes are left that are stained with straw. They set fire to the leeward side, it is necessary to maintain burning until morning warming.
Campfire ash and unburned smoke heap components are used to make compost. If the threat of frost remains, a new pile is laid in place of the burned bonfire to protect the garden from frost.
Kitchen Garden: Protection against Spring Cooling
When planting garden crops in early spring, everyone hopes to get an early harvest, but nature can intervene in the plans, preparing an unpleasant surprise – spring frosts that can happen even in mid-May.
There are several ways to protect planted plants:
Shelter construction:
This is the most popular, but quite expensive and time-consuming way to protect garden plantings from spring frosts. To do this, you need to purchase a special agro material that will protect vegetable plants from low temperatures. Shelter is built directly above the bed, all planted plants take shelter. From the sides, the covering material is fixed with stones, earth or other heavy objects, so that gusts of wind could not disrupt the shelter.
You can use any means at hand to protect plants: cardboard boxes, straw mats, plastic bottles, billboards from boards, plain earth.
Potatoes when frost can okuchit ground to the top, to decompose the garden beds straw layer.
Berry bushes and roses can be tied with burlap, peat or sawdust scattered between the bushes.
Sometimes hotbeds cannot cope with the protection of plantings from cooling – they are insulated with pre-prepared straw mats.
Sprinkling:
It seems paradoxical that ice can protect against cold, but this has been proven for years. Spraying water over the beds with crops helps to form an ice crust, under which plants are not threatened with frostbite.
Extraordinary watering:
With a slight cooling, it will help protect plants from frostbite of extraordinary watering. When water evaporates over the beds, a protective fog curtain is formed, inside which the temperature is higher than in the garden. This effect can be achieved in a large area if you place barrels filled with water on the site.
Excellent increases the resistance of plants to frostbite treatment with epin. This drug increases the immunity of vegetables, helping to endure temporary temperature drops.
