Plants Wilting in the Cold

Last night was a cold one here. It got down to about 43 degrees or so. This morning, I went outside to check on the plants. The tomatoes looked good. The herbs and flowers all looked fine. Of course the broccoli and lettuce is happy (they like the cool). The okra is not very happy (but the okra will get its own post, where I hopefully talk of how wonderfully it has recovered).

With all that said, to my shock and sadness, I found half of the eggplants and half of my banana peppers wilted and looking pathetic from (something). The dirt was wet, so it wasn’t that. It’s been windy like crazy here lately, so although it could be that I wasn’t sure, since they hadn’t wilted before. It also got cold last night for the first time since they has been out, which corresponded to them wilting. This led me to believe that they got too cold and were probably goners.

Sad pepper plant

Sad eggplant

another sad eggplant

As you can see in the picture above, they were not happy. I moved the long planter of banana peppers over to the sun to get a better look, became sad to see them like that, and went inside to check on the grow room peppers. I was making plans to swap out a couple of plants, and about 20 minutes went by. When I went back outside with my camera to document the damage, all but one of the peppers was upright and normal! Since this happened after they were moved into the sun, I figured it must be an issue of getting too cold. I put a container upside down over the lone sad pepper, and both sad eggplants.

I decided to try covering them for a bit

 An hour later, as if by magic, they all look good as new!

Happy pepper!

Happy eggplant

Another happy eggplant!

The lesson I learned from this is that this type of wilting can be caused by the cold (and maybe the wind as well). If this happens to you, don’t despair, and don’t tear up your plants without giving them the chance to bounce right back. The pictures above represent the difference that an hour in the direct sun made.

With gardening, every day is an adventure!