Wild weather swings - survival in the garden!

This weekend was great, Saturday was decently mild but Sunday was gorgeous. For early March it was great to have a warm 70 degree day, and then Monday hit - the day started in the 50's then dropped dramatically over 4 hours until we had freezing rain late afternoon! It was a mess.

For me this is our first year with a greenhouse. It's been experimental generally, and the temperature swings have definitely made our first year interesting.

My biggest concern last night centered around the seeds I've planted over the past couple of weeks. Most are early spring things like greens, etc. They are pretty cold tolerant and generally just can't freeze. We have a small space heater, nothing big enough to do much more than keep the inside of the greenhouse warmer than the outside by about 10 degrees. Soooo....just below freezing is fine (or really just OK, it knocked back our citrus trees pretty badly but they seem to be recovering after some pruning and some love). It also depends on how long the really low drop it - if it is just for a peak hour or two the inside of the greenhouse doesn't drop to badly. Also if the day was sunny the inside starts of hotter.

Yesterday was the worst of both - almost no sun and sustained temps below freezing and into the 20's for hours.

This morning I was pleasantly surprised. at 8:00 am the inside was about 36 degrees (outside was 28) and a few seedlings were drooping, but most seemed fine. I'd moved tomotoes and peppers that had popped up as close to the heater as reasonable and most of the rest of our hot weather seedlings haven't sprouted yet. Hopefully this will just delay them and won't do any real damage. Now the rest of the week has lows in the mid to high 30's...fingers staying crossed!

UPDATE - end of day: Just took a walk out in the garden, it's around 40 outside right now. Depite the tough weather over the past few days two things have sprouted today that were direct seeded in the beds! Daikon radishes and mustard greens.