If the flowers on your plants are already blooming, I have bad news.
"Buds are a one-shot deal pretty much," Peter Carrington, assistant curator of Michigan State University's W. J. Beal Botanical Garden, said. Once something has flowered, it usually won't flower a second time, says Carrington, and it's more sensitive to cold.
"But things that are still in bud, that haven't cracked open their buds, are probably going to be OK," he added. There are ways to protect plants that have flowered, he says. Covering plants with paper or plastic bags helps insulate them, especially if the bag does not cut off the plant from the ground - which can hold and release a lot of heat at night.
"In larger tracks of property, where that kind of thing is not practical, one thing you can do is actually set up a sprayer for the night to spray water on them," Carrington suggests. Water takes longer to freeze than your plants and can protect them from the cold.
The produce manager at Horrocks in Delta Township says weather like this can actually be good for some crops. "A lot of this produce does prefer the cool spring days, so if we have a mild spring, and we get the sunshine we need, I think we're going to have a great growing year," Ken Campbell said.
As long as it doesn't stay very warm for a week or more before freezing again, Michigan's produce won't be hurt. "It's stayed cool. We've definitely had some warm days but they haven't lasted very long, so as long as it stays as is, we should be OK," Campbell said.
The cold weather may put some farmers a couple of weeks behind schedule, but Campbell says when the fruits and veggies come in, they should be delicious.
