Winter coats

When the forecast is calling for 5 degrees -- and in our low-lying area temperatures often drop a few degrees colder than our forecast -- it's time to put some winter coats on some plants around the farm.  The citrangequat in the upper left photo is a cold hardy citrus that could probably withstand single digits, but it's still fairly young (and therefore more tender) and we didn't know how low temperatures would drop, so we took extra precautions by placing a bucket of water next to the little tree for a temperature buffer, and then covered it with a blanket and surrounded it with bags of pine straw.  To hedge our risks a little with our figs, we buried one bush several feet in leaves and wrapped a smaller bush in Christmas lights, but we didn't do anything for our other bushes.  We'd just taken our indoor Christmas tree down so it is quite festive to look out the window now to enjoy our lighted outdoor tree.  Then for our overwintering onion seedlings, we gave them a covering of hay -- it was a cutting that turned out too poor to use for feed -- on top of their glass cover. We'll transfer that hay to the strawberries or garlic for mulch soon.