Beautiful Frosty Morning

 

 

It's a beautiful fresh frosty morning here - the leaves are well decorated. This is the coldest that it's been since we moved back here in 2006, and my laissez-faire attitute to the root veg may backfire on me. For the past 2 winters I have left the beets, turnips and daikon in the ground through the winter, harvesting them as needed.

But since we didn't have much frost, this was a fairly safe strategy. This year, my fennel has already taken some damage from the frost, we covered it with fleece on Monday, but I have more or less written it off. It's not really supposed to overwinter. I was hoping for a few more Beet and Daikon harvests, though - I'm hoping that only the surface is frozen, and that they will be ok. The leeks are looking a bit limp, and some of them are going to seed, so probably time to use them up too. If things thaw in the afternoon, I'll go out and harvest a few to assess the damage.


Lesson learned - get in some straw in the autumn for tucking in the root veg!

On the positive side, this frost will break down the bed I prepared at the weekend, and will do a good job of killing the pests, it's a necessary part of the cycle, and welcome as such.