What temp is a damaging frost?

[gixxerific]

Is is 32 or 28? For some reason I'm thinking it is 28 but I could be way off.

I have Sweet potatoes in the ground and am wanting to wait as long as possible. But they're talking rain on and off all week, it rained last sat quite a bit. Your suppose to let them dry up a bit before harvest i believe. They are also talking 36* for a low next mon around my house that may be 34 or even 32. But it's rain for 2 days, sun, rain for 2 days, sun, rain than sun for 3 days or so. Basicallly it's gonna be a wet week ending with near freezing temps.

Confused DO they need to dry out that much. I will probably harvest a few of them tonight and maybe wait on the others.

What would you do?

[hendi_alex]

Quick search turned up this info:

"Sweet potatoes should be harvested by the time frost
kills the vines or soon thereafter. Usually 130-170 days
from planting are needed to give highest yields, although
“baby bakersâ€

[gixxerific]

Thanks Alex I knew all that just actually wondering what the damaging temp would be for all plants.


It doesn't matter anyways I just went out to check out one of the smaller plants and there was nothing that I could see. It is getting dark but I pulled up the plant and dug around a bit to find NOTHING on the first one.


Will try again tomorrow if it doesn't rain.

[hendi_alex]

Do you mean all plants, or all tender annuals? I think that tender annuals are hurt by any frost, even if the temperature is a little over freezing. In the spring, things like blooming blueberries, most perennials, and tender young tree leaves can handle light frost and colder temperatures down closer to 28 degrees or so. A hard frost much colder than that though and everything is toast. We had a very late hard freeze year before last. The temperature/frost killed everything back and things were over a month late, putting back out.

Also, worth mentioning is the duration of the cold temperature. Just a couple of hours near 32 degrees, and maybe the tender plants just get a little tip burn. Much longer though and the damage becomes significant with the tender annuals. As you said, down to 28 degrees, and those plants probably won't survive or at any rate won't be worth nursing back to health.

[gixxerific]

Again thanks Alex that's what I was thinking. It's not suppose to be a hard frost probably 34*. I should be okay for another week or 2. Though the suggested first frost date for me is Oct 15.

I hope I can get some tators though. I picked some about a month ago from smaller plants and they were somewhat small but awesome tasting. I still have the Monster a single plant that is almost as big as my other 4 put together so........(Crosses fingers).

[applestar]

[Twilight Zone theme] We must be on the same wave length, gixxerific. I went out just before dark to check on *my* sweet potatoes too. I realized that there are at least 6 plants that had been in the ground for 120+ days... which should be sufficient.

First of all, I had a heck of a time trying to find the actual plants. The vines have grown ALL OVER and have set down roots WHEREVER they could.
(Here's a photo from 9/16 -- 2+ weeks ago)

As I pushed the potato leaves aside, mosquitoes hiding in the leaves came at me and started biting me in the face, arms, neck... I finally located one plant and dug up one potato that just filled my hand, but the 2nd one I found (from the same plant) was a giant -- kind of round and about the size of a softball:

(We ate it for dinner, not waiting to "cure" -- it was yummy but not as sweet as it could've been -- but DD10 loved it. ). I want to give my kids the chance to dig around so I left rest of that plant alone and tried to locate the other plants, but scrabbling around in about 6 different locations produced nothing. Mostly, I kept finding rooted vines, not the original slip/plant. There are supposed to be another 4~6 plants in that raised bed. I think tomorrow's project is going to be to try to locate all the mother plants and stick bamboo markers next to them all.

I'm planning to "dry" them in the garage (we don't keep our cars in the garage and anything volatile -- paint, lawn mower, oil, gas, etc. are out in the shed) on my firepit grills -- I don't trust the squirrels not to find them out in the open.

I'm digging them all if frost kills the tops of the leaves, but, for my area, frost is not on the forecast for the next week. As I understand it, the danger is to the potatoes close to the surface, so I'm going to start looking for all the surface potatoes as of tomorrow. Also, I've been covering the main sw. potato bed with spun bonded floating covers when overnight lows have been in the low 40's.

Good luck with yours!

[gixxerific]

Thanks and good luck to you Applestar. I told you I liked you when I first joined, we think alike.

I have to dig around some more tomorrow, it was pretty dark when I went out. I know there is something there. Though these are in the worst part of the garden, if that is what you want to call that little patch.

[!potatoes!]

remember that you can eat the greens, too, if'n you're digging before the plants are hit by frost. (or even before digging)

[gixxerific]

remember that you can eat the greens, too, if'n you're digging before the plants are hit by frost. (or even before digging)

I never knew you could eat the greeans. It may take me a while to warm up to this. Seeing that regular potatoes are poisonous, I know thaey are not the same family but still..........

here's a link to my harvest not terribly bad but not real great either.
Sweet Potato Harvest

[promethean_spark]

IME, anything below 50'F results in retarded growth, flower drop, and much higher susceptibility to disease in summer crops. Plants are usually in pretty bad shape before a hard frost finally wipes them out.

Final frost tolerance varies by plant, squash and eggplant are very sensitive, while peppers and tomatoes can survive a very light frost.

[NatGreeneVeg]

Is is 32 or 28? For some reason I'm thinking it is 28 but I could be way off.

Light Frost: 29° to 32° F
Tender plants are not likely to survive these temperatures.

Moderate Frost: 25° to 28° F
Can cause widespread damage to many plants, with severity increasing the longer temperatures stay this chilly.

Severe Frost: 24° F or Lower