How cold? Tassie shivers through another ffffreezing night

Believe it or not, there are benefits to a heavy frost, with many garden goodies thriving in the cold.

UPDATED: While most Tasmanians barely tolerate freezing mornings, Tasmanian gardening guru Tino Carnevale is a big fan of the frost.

The Gardening Australia presenter said frosts were useful in warding off pests, helping plants thrive, and creating a pleasant gardening experience.

TASMANIA SHIVERS THROUGH FREEZING NIGHT

The temperature dipped to 0C in Hobart overnight — colder than the minimum of 1.8C overnight on Sunday — and dropped even lower elsewhere around the state.

“As a bit of a farm-y kind of person, frost is probably one of our best lines of defence as a grower [against] pests,” Mr Carnevale said.

Tino Carnevale with daughter Eden in their vegetable garden at home in Hobart. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

“The plants’ growth slows, but that also means that everything else slows and that’s things like insects. Certainly when we had incursions of things like fruit fly, the frost tends to be our best defence against them.”

Mr Carnevale said fruits such as apples, pears, and cherries all needed winter chill.

“They don’t necessarily need frost, but if there’s a frost then that means that the temperatures have gone below and that’s what the plants need to then flower and therefore set good fruit next season,” he said.

“That always keeps me warm, just the thought of ‘I’m going to get good berry crops and good fruit crops next season’ if we get a good bit of cold.

“What better way [to start your day] than a nice crisp bit of cold air into the lungs, and slowly warming up over the day as your garden’s warming up.”

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Mr Carnevale said Tasmanian native plants, cooler climate fruits, and a lot of vegetables thrived in the cold.

“A lot of your brassica, things like your kale, they always say ‘pick kale after the frost’ because the leaf is actually a lot sweeter, and that is true, we put it in the freezer to try and simulate that but we get it naturally here in Tasmania,” he said.

“There’s a lot of plants that obviously don’t [like the cold], a lot of your marginal plants like citrus that like it a little bit warmer or avocado — if you’re growing a banana or you’re trying to grow an avocado out in a field then you might want to protect it from the frost, but even then, those plants have tolerances.”

EARLIER: TASMANIA Police has advised motorists to drive with caution after multiple report of icy road conditions across the state and a number of minor crashes.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Anna Forrest said the temperature in Hobart dipped to 0C overnight — colder than the minimum of 1.8C overnight on Sunday.

Icy conditions greet motorists in Blackmans Bay. Picture: PHIL YOUNG

The worst of the wintry weather has now passed, though, and Ms Forrest said Hobart could expect “lots and lots of sunshine” today as the city heads for a partly cloudy top of 12C.

“This is about as cold as it’s going to get, it should start to improve from now on, but it will get a little bit windier,” Ms Forrest said.

Cressy got down to -4C this morning, Fingal -6C, Flinders Island -1C, and Liawenee, Ouse, and Grove -5C.

Hobart is expected to reach 14C tomorrow, 15C on Thursday, and 17C on Friday and Saturday before plummeting back to 12C on Sunday.