Keep frost from flowers
The health of flowers on fruiting plants is key to cropping success. Be sure to protect fruit buds from frost, says Bob
MOST gardeners lose some plants or potential crops to frosts sooner or later. We can have damp grey years with late wet springs which seldom have a frost, or we can enjoy a bright sunny early spring and endure several.
It’s difficult to tell if and when a hard frost will strike. If one does, the fruit enthusiast is struck hardest, as frost so badly damages the flowers of our earliest, most desired fruits. Apricots, peaches, then plums and pears are notoriously lost to frost as these flower earliest. However, in bad years, a hard frost may come later, when strawberries, cherries and apples are blooming.
The problem is worse as it’s not just petals damaged by frost. We’ve all seen leaves scorched by frost – the same happens to expanding buds, floral parts, small stems and already formed fruitlets. Even well-developed fruits may be damaged by severe hard frost. Most of us know that throwing a sheet or light fleece over a tree or a bush will keep quite a heavy frost at bay. This is because the sky is the coldest bit, although the air and ground also need to be cold for a bad frost. Most of the heat is lost to the blackness of space, so a thin cover stops most of that radiation loss, thus meaning that the plants only need to cope with cold air. And if the ground is at all warm, then the heat wafting up underneath the cover is trapped, giving even greater protection.
So have loads of old sheets and duvet covers, fleeces and fine mesh nets ready for your favourite fruits, or at the very least cover a branch or two. Clothes pegs should hold them in place. Don’t worry about it getting windy enough to blow the covers off, as it is very unlikely to be both windy and frosty.
“A hard frost may well come later”