First frost warning overnight - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

The entire Hoosier state will be under a Frost Advisory early Monday morning with clear skies and calm winds expected to drop temperatures in most outlying areas into the low to mid 30s. The city of Indianapolis may stay warmer in the mid-to-upper 30s. 

The idea is to keep the plant temperature up as high as possible.  By covering your plants, you're trapping as much soil heat as possible.  It's important not to use plastic, as that could trap moisture and cause additional freeze and damage. But anything that will breathe - a sheet, blanket or newspaper covering plants with baskets or pots will help.

Brady Summers like any five-year-old boy who loves to play in the dirt. His mom and dad felt that after two years in their Brownsburg house, it was time for new plants.   
  
The Summers family spent most of Sunday afternoon making three trips to the garden center and spending a couple hundred dollars for bushes, trees and other plants. By Monday morning, the new plants could be covered with frost. Terri Summers said, "It would be nice if they made it through the night."

According to Will Gore of Old Farm Market, covering those new plants with a sheet is one way to protect them.  He said, "Mums and anything that is flowering right now really need to be either covered up or they need to be sprayed off before the sun comes up in the morning, or (frost) will burn everything off of them." 

That's right. If you have not covered your plants, you can get up with the sun and spray them with the hose. But not too early, Gore, said, "You have to do it at the right time, because if you do it too early and the sun is not comin' up yet, it has not even frosted yet."

So wait to spray until after sunrise. And if you are looking for frost blankets, you may find that many retailers have been out of stock since spring.

While hard on plants and gardens, one of the benefits of a frost is that it will kill off some of the nuisance mosquitoes. However, the first frost of the season will not kill off the mosquito species that carry the West Nile virus. That will take two days of temperatures at or below freezing to kill off most mosquitoes.

If this frost all feels a bit early, it is. We don't usually see frost in Central Indiana until mid-to-late October.