We planted our garden around the 22nd of March in Nacogdoches, Texas. The weather channel assured that all chance of hard frost was past. What do they know?! We had beautiful weather for several weeks (70's, sun, a few days of nice soaking rain). All our plants were thriving and then, of course, it was 80 one day and that night is got down to 28. We scurried around, bought straw and covered our whole garden. Most of our plants did fine (peas, beans, watermelon, onions, squash, radishes). However, it seems that we lost most of our tomato and pepper plant.

My question is this: Many of our tomato and pepper plants still (after a week) have strong looking stalks and a couple of leaves. Most of the leaves were brown and dead so we pinched them off. Will they come back or should we just pull them up and replant?

Thanks for the help.

That sure would be an awful lot of tomato plants to replace.
It's also a risk to leave 'em all and get nothing.
Did you start them from seed or buy transplants?
Not seeing how bad the plants look, I say keep the best and replace the rest.

I'm in Frog, Texas a little north and west of you and it seems that our last freeze is always near Easter. I just set my tomatos out yesterday.
Those purty days will have you chompin' at the bit to get things in early. We had a dip to 29 on the 8th. I figure we're good to go now.

Good luck!
Richard

Thanks, Richard. That is about what I had in mind. I started them from seedings so some of them were 8-10 inches tall. My husband swears that next year we are not touching the garden until after Easter. It is hard when it is 80 degrees in February!

Guess it is a trip to the nursery today to replace some of those plants.

Where exactly is Frog, Texas? Near Longview maybe?

Dang, that's a lot of work starting all those plants from seed and then loosing them to a late cold snap.
I have had my onions, radishes, beets and carrots and spinach in since early February. They handle the cold just fine. Tomatoes and peppers won't tolerate it.

Frog is smack-dab between Elmo and Cobb or Terrell and Wills Point.
http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Frog&state=TX

Looks like we're in for some pretty good rain tomorrow, better get busy!

Richard