Nurseries and farms across South Florida make preparations ahead of cold snap

Crop growers across South Florida are getting prepped for the upcoming steep drops in temperature.

Nurseries and farms are not wasting any time to get ready for a bitter blast, which is expected to bring record cold temperatures this weekend.

Local nursery owners and spokespeople spoke with 7News on Thursday.

“This is very unusual, because we did it last week, and now we’re doing it again,” said Patricia Kyle, who owns Galloway Farm Nursery in Southwest Miami-Dade.

“All of our plants are watered and covered,” said Lyz-Stephanie Durand with Flamingo Road Nursery. “We are doing everything possible to make sure the plants stay warm.”

The top priority in order to preserve outdoor plants during the impending freeze is warmth and close care.

“So we move them inside, we give them extra water, we tarp them and we run the sprinklers a bit longer as well,” said Durand.

The nurseries recommend to bring in your plants before temperatures drop Saturday night.

If you have a garden, you can use the same practices as the nurseries and cover your plants with tarps, thermal blankets or other fabric.

“If you have sheets around the house, you can cover them with the sheets,” said Kyle.

Experts advise that outdoor plants will need extra water during the cold snap.

Lara Farms Nursery in Southwest Miami-Dade specializes in rare tropical fruits and uses a special irrigation system to keep their precious commodities alive, which they demonstrated to 7News.

“Best thing we can do is make sure it’s watered, it’s underneath a canopy of mamey sapote, which is another tropical fruit,” said Lara Farms’ owner Julian Lara. “Maybe 75, 76-degree water, that really helps a lot, so the point is let it saturate the earth, let it saturate the soil.”

Over at Torbert Farms in Homestead, farmers were up bright and early Thursday to water crops.

They said the chilly weather could bring up serious challenges if they don’t properly prepare.

“A lot of your wintertime vegetables are grown in this area, so if we were to lose everything, you’d be depending on Mexico and other countries to feed us,” said Torbert Farms’ owner David Torbert.

The biggest takeaways plant owners can take from these nurseries is to bring their plants inside if possible. If that is not option, they are advised to cover the plants in fabric and give them more water than usual.