One cold night can end a whole season. Enter tonight’s forecast low from your weather app (we can’t see live weather, so you check and type it), tell us what’s in the ground, and we’ll tell you whether covering is worth your evening.
Enter your ZIP, crop type, and tonight’s low above.
- Drape row cover, frost fabric, or an old bedsheet over the plants — never lay plastic directly on leaves (it transfers the cold).
- Anchor the edges with stones or soil so the cover stays put and traps warm air rising from the soil.
- Set covers out before sunset so they catch the day’s warmth; pull them off in the morning once the frost melts so plants get light.
- Water the soil in the afternoon — moist soil holds more heat overnight than dry soil.
How it’s figured
Tender warm-season crops stop growing near 50°F and take damage below about 40°F. Half-hardy crops handle a light freeze down to about 28°F but lose tissue in a hard freeze below that. Hardy crops like kale and garlic typically stand down to about 25°F, and new transplants are the exception — they’re always more vulnerable than established plants. These are typical ranges, not guarantees for any variety. Your ZIP shows the nearest of 85 reporting cities (station data, not your exact yard), with average frost dates from published frost-date tables and ZIP coordinates from the US Census 2024 Gazetteer. Microclimates and elevation can shift real temperatures.