Surviving the Winter . . . Be Prepared

After reading Charles Dowding's excellent book 'How to Grow Winter Vegetables' I decided to follow his advice and cover up my winter vegetables before the start of winter to ensure their survival if the snow decided to fall and the temperatures drop.

Netting covering the psb and cabbages
Netting cloches covering chard and celery

Using everything I could find, fleece, plastic sheeting, netting and cloches I then covered the  winter plants to ensure their survival till the weather gets warmer.  My reasoning being, if the weather gets harsh, which it is now, at least I will be able to get something to eat from the garden.  I braved today's snow to take some pictures to show you.

This cloche is made from the top of an old metal arch
that I covered with a mesh cover to protect the spring cabbage

I used netting cloches to cover the chard and celery, netting to cover the psb, fine mesh butterfly fabric for my new spring cabbage plants and ordinary netting to drape over the cabbages.  This is an experiment to see which is the best covering to hold off the winter snows.

draped green mesh over some garden canes to protect
winter onions and cabbage

                        

There are more young cabbage plants nestling under this netting cloche

Inside the greenhouse I have a few lettuce seedlings and in the cold frame, some spinach and chard seedlings.

They are not a winter variety, just normal salad leaves




Inside the greenhouse the young lettuce seedlings
are covered with plastic fruit cartons
with a double layer of fleece on top

 


the chard and spinach in the coldframe shows no sign
of winter damage save that of being nibbled by
something or other

 

The lettuce in the old tomato grow bags is covered by ventilated polythene



a pot of rocket leaves in the greenhouse seem
perfectly ok without any extra protection



So, when it finally stops snowing, I will lift the covers which are now weighed down with snow and check to see how everything has fared.  I suppose in the end it is all about common sense and being prepared for the worst.