Square foot gardening here. So far my peas, radishes, lettuces and onions are coming up nicely. Still waiting on the nasturtium, marigolds and carrots to make a showing. Last weekend I planted a celebrity and sweet 100 that are being protected from the cold. This weekend I plan to plant bell peppers, jalepenos, cukes yellow squash and butternut squash... Although, the forecast is calling for low to mid 30's in DFW this weekends so I may wait on the pepper transplants. Also, the rain we got yesterday filled my 55 gallon rain barrel so I think I'm set.

Seedlingararium Update:

Every last peat pot has sprouted. Last year it was one out of three just using peat pots and seeds. Using the aquarium has made an insane difference. They'll need some potting soil or something added because the okra's already growing roots outside the pots. After Easter we'll put them outside and they'll have a great start.

Sounds familiar - we're planting quite a bit of the same stuff.

This is also my first year setting up rain barrels, and WOW, they are great for water conservation

weather.com is calling for 32 saturday night in the metroplex

If it does freeze up there, there are a lot of things you can do to protect your plants...If you have tomato cages, put them over the plants and take some large black trash bags and cover the cages with them, tying the bags at the bottom...

2 litter bottles and 1 gallon milk/water jugs can be emptied, rinsed, and have the bottoms cut off then placed over the plants leaving the tops off or poke holes in the tops.

If you have a boat load of leaves, you can pile them over the plants after the sun goes down and remove them as soon as it comes back up...

You can lay down tomato cages on their sides and cover the plants with sheets, or put them strategically around the garden and place a large tarp over them keeping the tarp off the plants...

I'm sure there are other things people on this forum have done in the past, if you have some ideas, please share them...

Here's what I was planning on doing...let me know if you think it would work.

I have two 4' x 4' raised beds. I put 4 pieces of Rebar in the ground, at each corner. Saturday night I'll take 10 ft. lengths of PVC pipe, put each end on a bar of Rebar, and build a little "hoop house" type-structure. Then take some 1 mil plastic dropcloth and put it over that, and weigh it down by bricks.

I might also put a few sections from the newspaper over each plant.

edit, found a pic:
kind of similar to this, but with PVC pipes, not steel. And I'll put plastic dropcloth over the top.

That should work fine, but I wouldn't do the newspapers...The main thing is to protect them from the wind. I would also do that before sundown to keep some heat in there...Remember to pull it off as soon as the sun is up...

I've got a similar setup. Raised bed with some PVC over the top that I use to cover the garden while it's still cool at night. I'm not putting plastic over mine, it's just a row cover. It's got about 70% light transmission and protects from a light frost. This bed is 4'x8' and the PVC over the top is a 6' piece of 1/2" PVC.

Really nice setup jeff.m

i dont feel so bad about not having my garden up and running,with this freeze coming

It's not just the temperature drop that could hurt the plants, but the wind. The cold winter wind can dry those plants out, effectively killing them. I have a guest house blocking the garden at the lake from the north wind, so I don't have to worry about that, but most people, especially in the D/FW area don't seem to have a lot of ways to block the wind. I'm actually more concerned about the wind up there than the temps. I still think the weather morons are wrong, but if it is better to be prepared than to be replanting...

There is a fence only inches from the north side of my beds so the wind shouldnt be an issue for me but I think I'm still going to cover them with some plastic jugs.

Need to know what you guys think of this. You know they talk about potatoes you shouldn't eat that are "green" because of the toxin they contain. The toxin comes from the potato being exposed to light when growing.

I wasn't really expecting it, but one of the potatoes had a shoot when I went out there yesterday to check on them. I never saw it (I guess it was there Wednesday or Tuesday). You see, I put the potato seeds in the dead-middle of the square, on my square foot garden. How was I to know nature would not perfectly agree with everything I was doing, and would send a shoot 6" away, completely unforeseen?!

Here's a picture of the potato shoot. I actually covered it a bit up with soil before taking the picture. I'd say there was about 2" of the potato sprout sticking out of the ground. It's in the corner, as you can see, and (at least in the afternoon) it's shielded by the box so the light was not hitting it.

I haven't grown potatoes before, although my grandfather did and I loved pulling them out of the ground...I think it just goes to show that sometimes things don't go as you planned...