Allotment – first frost

We had our first frost last night, and it had to happen after a full day of rain, didn’t it?

So I zoomed up to the plot today, to see what, if any, damage had been done. All our broad bean seedlings seem to have survived, but just to be on the safe side, I’ve covered as many as possible with bottle cloches. These are the same clear plastic bottles that we use in summer, narrow end down, as watering funnels to the roots of thirsty plants (so we don’t have to water the soil, meaning the weeds get no benefit) and are then inverted to cover tender plants, wide end down.

Rather wonderfully, several of the beans were too big to fit inside even a BIG bottle, so I just have to hope they will cope on their own. And un-wonderfully, I discovered that our brilliant broad bean supports have one major problem – we’ve put side supports in to strengthen the whole six row system and that means you can’t actually walk between the rows … so those side supports are going to have to come down when we harvest, if not before!

I’m glad that at the weekend I found time to cut down and mulch my globe artichokes, I know that not everybody does this and somebody asked for pictures last year, so here’s one.

Why do I do it? Well, partly because somebody who was a great gardener taught me to, years ago, and I’ve always carried on, and partly because there are two reasons that I think it could be useful – the first is that rain does fill up the gaps between the stems on globe artichoke leaves and that can cause them to rot in the winter, and the second is that their fleshy leaves do easily get damaged by frost, so cutting the outer leaves off and using them to cover the inner leaves and base of the plant, to keep out both rain and frost, seems sensible.

Now I’m worrying is that nobody else does this at all – although perhaps I shouldn’t worry as I do know that my artichokes are the envy of my neighbours.

Labels: allotment-broad-beans, allotment-frost, allotment-globe-artichokes

Allotment frosts and fears

So, after we spent the weekend planting out peas (Meteor) and second early potatoes (Charlotte), we had a heavy frost on Sunday night.

The peas on 201, which is fully fenced, are planted against a bit of old wire mesh with metal posts to hold it steady and Himself pegged some horticultural fleece over them in a sort of makeshift tent. I have every confidence that they will be fine. But on 235, where there is no fence to provide even limited frost protection, the peas are being supported by twiggy branches and they don’t have any fleece over them. I have every expectation that they will have been blighted by air frost, but I’m hoping I might just be able to nip out the blackened tips and they’ll get back on course.

The broad beans on 235 have been overwintered – they were protected by old double-glazing panels supported on bricks until about a week ago when they got too tall and were pressing their heads against the glass. I know that if they’ve been frost-blighted, they should come back if I take out the tops, which we’d probably do anyway, given that broad bean tops attract blackfly like nobody’s business. The second sowing of broad beans is still in the cold frame at 201, so they should be fine.

The good news, as far as I am concerned, is that I prevented Himself watering the onion sets on 201 on Sunday afternoon – onions don’t need a vast amount of water, and had they been given a good soak, they would probably have lifted from the ground on the frost and could have been wiped out. Of course, all this is speculation until I get up there, this afternoon, to see what the actual damage is.

Our latest frost date is, as far as I can discover, 18 April, so there are plenty more frightening nights ahead. Some plants, like the Japanese quince hedge in the photograph, have a special enzyme that protects them from frost damage: snowdrops have it too, which is why they don't blacken when they are blanketed in snow. I could wish that some clever boffin would hybridise it into spring vegetables ...

Labels: allotment-broad-beans, allotment-fences, allotment-frost, allotment-peas, allotment-potatoes, horticultural fleece