Protecting your garden plants from a freeze

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) - With Tuesday night's freeze warning, some of your garden plants might be affected.

Local News 8 visited a nursery and community garden to learn more of when to plant our garden.

Even though it's been warmer lately, Idaho weather can suddenly shift to freezing, and the best way to keep your plants from freezing is not to plant them yet.

“The main thing is you shouldn't be planting things this early,” said Rick Damarjian of Paradise Nursery. “If you're planting peppers and tomatoes right now and you're not covering them, they're done.”

Things like lettuce, spinach and cauliflower are generally okay to plant right now because they are tougher and more resilient to the cold weather.

“There's a lot of things you can get in the garden now, but you just got to know what to plant and what not to plant."

If you've already planted fragile plants like flowers, you can try using mini-heaters or covering them with cloth.

“It's not going to save your crops from a hard freeze, per se. But the thing about this that's nice versus a sheet or a blanket is that it's just so light and the light can actually still penetrate through the the fiber of this material,” said Vice President of the Idaho Falls Community Garden Association, Elise Hart.

That being said, when should we plan to plant flowers and other fragiler plants?

“Everything else, I would wait until probably the end of May,” Hart said.

"Right at the end of May. Just kind of depends on how the weather is when you get there,” Damarjian said.