Here we go again Central Florida

This one's goings going to hurt .....

Make sure you get everything watered today & covered tonight ....or at least have the covers staged. Temps should degrade today after the rain & bottom in the 40's. The bad news is, they won't recover any during the day and will gradualy lower into the 20's.

...and if that wasn't enough .....toss in 20-30mph winds

The real pain will begin tonight, when the temperatures drop to the low 40s, said Bay News 9 meteorologist Brian McClure. Come Monday morning, temperatures are not expected to rise above the upper 40s.

"It will feel colder than that. It will be the coldest day we have seen this winter," McClure said. "What you're looking at is basically a raw day, cloudy, cold, rainy. We might even see a few sprinkles."

Then it will get worse.

Overnight Monday into Tuesday morning there will be a hard freeze in much of the region, with a wind chill advisory and temperatures in the low 20s in Hernando, Hillsborough and Pasco counties.

I know when I'm beat, so I'm harvesting everything on he non-container plants (tomatoes & peppers) today.

A fried green tomato in the pan is worth more than two frozen-solid ones on the bush

The bright side is that you can begin your new plants in a month!

Ugh. Fortunately we haven't gotten below 40 yet. I'm really hoping to keep going through the winter, but I know January is going to be the tricky part.

Well it's kinda stinky here.

Despite a valiant (IMHO) effort on my part, I'm almost 100% positive I've lost the contents on both SFG boxes and the free standing container veggies.

Below freezing base temp with 30 mph winds for 48+ hours is more than my meager gardening skill-sets can handle. I've had to go door-to-door for the last two nights, knocking on doors & asking ..... "Have you seen my plant covers?". So far I've been able to locate/recover all the tarps within a 1-block radius

Cold I can handle, wind I can handle .... cold + wind = "epic fail" .... I just cant seem to keep the protective covers on the boxes

Luckily my 'Noahs' Ark of plants (two of each of my plant types in 10" pots, stored in my garage, with a dedicated heater) seems to be doing fine so-far.

I've also got 6 trays of "sprouts" doing wonderfully on my kitchen table ...just wating for the weather to break, so they can go outside. So all is not lost.