Hardy veg that will cope with cold weather
Post categories: beetroot, carrot, courgette, french bean, tomato
| 15:40 UK time, Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Autumn is here, with its shorter days and lower temperatures, which means you'll be saying goodbye to your summer veg. So the Dig In team popped over to the BBC Weather office to ask Broadcast Meteorologist Peter Gibbs what things that will be happier with the colder conditions and he gave us the following advice.
Plants like tomatoes, courgettes and French beans just aren't designed to cope with cold weather. Make sure you keep harvesting before they get killed off by frost, but don't forget you can pick tomatoes and ripen them indoors. You might be able to keep your plants going a little longer by giving them some protection. Horticultural fleece is ideal, a light fabric that can be bought at garden centres.
Root crops such as carrots and beetroot are much tougher and can stay in the ground until you need them. Just watch out for slugs, which love to come out to feed on mild, damp autumn nights.
There is some veg that you can plant now. Oriental greens such as pak choi and mizuna will stand frost, but get them going now while the soil is still fairly warm. You'll get even better results if you cover them with a cloche. The plastic ones are fairly inexpensive.
Miniature onions known as sets can go in, along with garlic bulbs. Broad beans can be sown now, but check on the back to make sure you get a variety suitable for autumn sowing. These will sprout, sit through the winter, then grow away next spring to give you an earlier crop.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~04~RS~)
Comments
Can i just say a very big THANK YOU! I had sucsess with most of the seeds sent to me. The only problem I have had was with the Basil, It just did not want to grow. My Courgettes are still producing and my French beans.. Thank you again. Hope you will be carrying on with Dig in, in 2011? I will certainly take part. What a great way to get people into there gardens.. Sorry i missed Chris Collins in Dover earlier this year..
Sharon
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Funnily enough, it was with Basil that I had a first-time success - never in all my years been able to grow it from seed before. Either it germinated and just sat there, or didn't even germinate. With Dig-In I had immediate success and a healthy crop which we enjoyed and then I turned the remainder into pesto - what a treat that's been - so much so that I wished I'd sown ALL the seeds and frozen far more.
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I had a good crop this year. But I can never get good results from Courgettes. They start off well, I have some nice Courgettes then I might get one good specimen and while that is growing the rest just rot.
Am I lacking something?
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I prepared our veges bed to perfection, propogated, planted out and grew a magificent crop of eight different vegetables
One of our Aubergines from HomeBase turned into a Sun flower, (beautiful big one to oversee the lot) The Butternut squash took over the leaks and peas, and carrots. The vegetative growth, (fuelled by patient watering during the dry spell,) was a site to behold. Plants did not grow rank, but did not fruit as prolifically as I would have liked, They tasted great. I am not used to such large Courgette hairy leaves, each plant spreading over a two meter radius. Many male flowers, and not many bees. Huge juicy squash. The Broccoli and Cauliflower that did survive the snails and slugs was competition stuff, We put them through the Vitamix, seeds flowers, stems and all, for soup, with our Herbalife shakes. The Butternut squash is still spreading, and still growing, and still chasing the sun. Fabulous. thank you for the chance to be part of the miracles of what is natural in London.
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