An Experiment

In my post regarding cloches, I mentioned that I also keep some old blankets to protect beds from frost damage early in the spring. Although I've covered plants to protect them from a frost in years past, I've never tracked the temperature differential between the "outside" world and the cozy world under the blanket. So last night, with the threat of frost overnight in Lancaster, I tracked the temperature movement for a few hours in the bed of peas Lois planted on the 17th. 

The peas were covered before dark last night as the temps began to drop.The old quilt is folded over into a pad four thicknesses deep. After dark, I took a thermometer out to the garden and let it run down to the outside temperature. As you can see, at 8:50 p.m. it was 43.2 degrees outside the blanket.

I then tucked the thermometer under the blanket. I left it in place until 9:40....

and it registered a temp of 49.5.  I continued recording the temperatures until 11:45 p.m. They looked like this:
10:04 - 39.6 outside the blanket
10:50 - 45.7 under the blanket
11:13 - 37.1 outside
11:45 - 45.4 under

This morning, I went out just after 9:00 a.m. which is before the sun has reached the garden. There was a light coating of frost on top of the blanket testifying to a 32 degree or lower point overnight. The temperature under the blanket was 39.6

So the blanket seems to maintain a roughly 7 degree higher temperature over the seeded bed.

Keep those old blankets handy if you've got seeds out. They clearly perform well at keeping the stored heat over seeds and seedlings.

I can't make up my mind if I want to talk about garden "good guys" and pests or building a compost heap next. Anyone have a preference?  See you again soon. Thanks for stopping by!