What to do to help save plants hit by unexpected frost in Pittsburgh area

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — With a frost hitting parts of the Pittsburgh area this morning, what can you do right now to save the plants you might’ve planted over the past couple of weeks? 

KDKA’s John Shumway spoke with an expert and found that if you took no action, there is a glimmer of hope out there.

When your livelihood depends on the crops you are raising, you take frost very seriously. 

Rob Shenot of Shenot Farms in Wexford says that if you took no action, the best thing you can do is to hope that things don’t turn out as bad as you thought they were going to. 

While the chance to cover your plants may have passed, Shenot says that setting up a fan to blow across the plants might help. 

“Just move some air around to keep the frost from settling on the the flower buds for instance,” Shenot said. “That might be an effective thing just to keep keep the air moving a little bit.”

As for what you need to worry about, Shenot says that tomato plants would be very vulnerable along with pepper plants and flowers, if they’re an annual. 

Shenot said that vegetable plants like kale, broccoli, or things in the cabbage family are going to be just fine. 

The good news is that the frost this morning isn’t going to be around long and the sun and rising temperatures will help. Then you will just have to wait and see if your plants recover.

In some cases, it will be obvious that the plant is dead as its leaves could turn black and shrivel.

In other cases, it may take a few days or weeks to be able to tell if the plant is going to recover.

One thing you might want to do once the temperature gets into the upper 40’s or close to 50 degrees is water the base of the plant. That might help with recovery.