North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Spidra Webster <spidra@speakeasy.net>]

I hope you all will excuse the bonehead questions about frost  
protection.  I'm a born and bred coastal Californian and have rarely  
had to deal with these things before.  January 2007 was devastating  
to my garden.  I lost a number of standard citrus trees, among other  
things.  So I gritted my teeth and apologized to my yelping wallet  
and parted with $150 to buy a huge roll of Agribon cloth.  However,  
I'm given to understand it's better not to have the frost cloth  
touching the plants.  So I'm assuming I'm going to have to build (or  
have built, since I'm disabled...ai! more money...) "cages" around  
the trees so that the cloth can be built around the cages.

We had our first frost last night.  The temp was 43 at 11pm so I  
didn't expect it.  The potatoes and other tender annuals show some  
damage. Is just tossing a length of frost cloth over them the way to  
go?  Or do those need frames, too?  Since we generally have periods  
of weeks between frosts, should I be constructing something that will  
allow me to easily lift the frost cloth to provide light in-between  
times?  Any tips for a complete newbie to gardening around a frost  
would be greatly appreciated.

Megan Lynch

Berkeley, CA 9b