Hi everyone. What are you doing in anticipation of the freeze tonight and tomorrow night to protect your fruit trees that have already bloomed?  My large peach tree which yielded an amazing crop last year is in bloom with flowers and leaves showing because of the abnormally warm temperatures last month.  In fact, the tree didn't reach full bloom until April 28th of last year following a gradual warm-up after a very cold winter.

I am very concerned that the overnight lows in the 20s predicted for today and tomorrow here in North Central NJ will severely damage my tree.  Do I keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best, or is there something that can be done to avoid cold damage? 

My fig trees are still covered so I can move the 4 heat lamps and aim them at the tree although I'm not sure that it would have much of an effect because the tree isn't covered and I don't plan on covering it.  I don't have Christmas lights to use either.  Would a wood burning fire pit throughout the night help out at all?  Maybe a couple of space heaters if the winds are calm?  Any advice would be appreciated!!!  Hopefully the temps will not dip as low as predicted.

How big is the peach tree?  Can you put a blanket over it or a tarp?  That will protect it from the frost.

I put sheets and burlap over and around the tress, cherry & persimmons

Facing same issue here on LI. All my potted figs went back into garage. One large chicago hardy fig which I unwrapped last month I threw a blanket over it which got soaked in today's rain. My two peach trees have buds and a few leaves. Can not really cover so hoping for the best.....or at least that local supermarket has a good selection of peaches if things dont go well. Such is a gardeners life in the crazy Northeast! Hope NJ and LI fare ok.

I have asian pears and blueberries in full bloom and we are expecting a low of 29 deg F.  I'm fighting a cold and spent about 30 min moving the figs back into the garage.  I'm exhausted now.  The pears and bb's are kind of big for covering so I think I'll have to keep my fingers crossed.

I've had good luck in the past using a sprinkler on my kiwi vines.. they were coated in ice the next morning but that saved them.

I just brought my potted figs and blueberries in and also threw a moving blanket over my two in ground figs.

Cant catch a break

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/factsheet/pub__5191779.pdf 

@29 you maybe OK  even if you lose some you will still have to thin so a 50 - 60% or more kill off is still OK for large fruits.  It was 29 here for and hour or two and my stuff survived, 32 last night. They are giving 24 for Friday night though...boy I hope that is not going to happen! 

Thanks to each of you for your advice!  I placed 5 heat lamps around the canopy of the tree hoping that it helps.  The picture below shows the setup.  Keeping fingers crossed!

 

I'm spraying all of my stone fruits and apples and pears with KDL.

No Wisteria flowers here this year - buds are all dead ):-

UPDATE: The tree seemed to make it through the night unscathed! Tonight will be the real test since the temps are supposed to be a few digits lower than last night.

Did anyone nearby have any damage on your fruit trees from last night?

Yes we had 20*F last night.

All wisteria ~1/2-3/4" flower/buds are frozen dead.
I did tarp cover a small one trained as a nice tree on the front lawn
- made no difference from the bigger one(uncovered) trained as a screen on my deck

Also all the full blooming magnolia flowers is now brown....

Flowers from spring bulbs seem to have survived.

It was -10C (14F) here last night and my leafed out potted figs and inground fuzzy kiwi in my 10x12 greenhouse made it through with a small space heater and a bunch of 75W halogens as backup. The greenhouse temperature was right around the 0C 32F this morning when I checked so it was close. The fan likely helped too.

Record cold last few nights.   With the wind off the lake 60-80km I couldn't keep the greenhouse temp >5C during the day so I  brought in all my leafed out figs rather than take a chance.

Lets hope this is the end of winter for this year.

The plums, apples and apricots we pushing buds and the little blossoms were visible.   Will find out in a few days if the buds were killed.

Is anyone else taking extra precaution tonight with their inground fruit trees?  Would burning wood in a fire pit throughout the night help?

UPDATE 2:

The temps got down to 25 last night and not as low as originally forecasted.  I repeated the same process with the radiant heat lamps.  Opened flowers seems to be pretty much intact along with flowers that are still closed and budding. 

I hope you all fared well or at least better than you expected..It's sad to hear of so much damage and yet I knew this would happen..We can't hold of the polar express for long and unfortunately at had to come back in April and skip the entire winter..Keep your fingers crossed and hope we don't get more of these right through June..It has happened before((((
Thank God I didn't warm up too fast for anything to be in bloom..My Star Magnolia started to but stopped as soon as temps dropped into the teens for days..It is just starting to grow again.