The first cold snap of the year has growers doing what they can to keep their sensitive plants and crops safe.
"If it completely froze it would be really devastating," said Jeff Speicher, owner of Glory Road Gardens.
For Glory Road Gardens in Lutz the threat of cold weather means Speicher will be watching the thermostat and keeping his precious micro green crops nice and toasty.
"Garnet Red Amaranth doesn't like to get below 40 degrees. It will burn the leaves and the basil really doesn't like to go below 50 degrees," Speicher said.
Speicher sells these tiny plants to high-end restaurants. He has more than $12,000 worth of crops ready to go and uses wood stoves to save on electricity.
"I have three wood-burning stoves in my greenhouse and I'll be up all night stoking it hopefully keeping it 50 or above," Speicher said.
Speicher plans on losing sleep to make sure he doesn't lose his money maker.
"If you have a stint of cold weather and you don't do something about it it won't come in on time," said Speicher.
"Half of the job is watching the weather," said Amber Stulley.
Farther north in Hernando County, employees at Aventura Nursery are covering between $50,000 and $75,000 in tropical plants -- even the snowball azalea's are cold-sensitive.
"They're saying between 27 and 29 up here tonight so we're just trying to batten down the hatches and get everything covered," said Stulley.
When covering your plants at home, try to keep the freeze cloth from touching the top of the plants and always secure the bottom so the wind can't get inside and you can lock in the earth's warmth. Basically creating a mini greenhouse for big plants.
But for Speicher it's creating a big warm greenhouse for miniplants.
"Trying to get the crop to come in and harvest it to get to the restaurants every week is not the easiest thing to do," said Speicher.
