That's really good to know, Galinas, Thanks!

prtairiemoon - I planted my fall crops at the end of July. Note - it was a very cool summer, and an earlier planting mostly failed.

I have two 20' rows of fall lettuce, red and green butterhead, romaine, red and green leaf. Sorry to say I don't exactly recall all the varieties. Didn't try fall crisphead or iceberg - wish I had. I grow for heads, and I've got big, full ones.

Last week I noticed that one head of red butter lettuce had gone to seed, so I pulled the rest.

At the same time I did succession plantings of bok choi [mei qing] and the heads are likewise huge now, excellent quality.

I need to do more slug control, tho.

IME, both are hardy to around 25 degrees. Repeated frosts below 25 will cause loss of quality. Try tatsoi next year. It is hardy to 10 degrees F.

ThatâÂÂs interesting, Ltilton, I didnâÂÂt sow seed until the end of August. IâÂÂm not quite getting the sluggish rate of growth this time of year, yet. Two months, and I would think IâÂÂd have a full size head. Unless, again it is less sun too, that slows things down. So you have big full size heads, but youâÂÂve had them in the ground 3 months.

Did you direct seed both the Bok Choy and the Lettuce at the same time? Also you still have full sun, in the Fall? Trying to adjust my expectations for my own conditions.

Okra, thanks, thatâÂÂs a lot lower temp that they can tolerate than I thought. IâÂÂve heard of Tatsoi, wonder what it tastes like?

I had thought it might be fun to grow all through the winter under small hoop covers on the raised beds, but IâÂÂm starting to feel that we are ready for a break from the garden by this time. Especially when you canâÂÂt grow your favorite vegetables. I think I would rather grow crops that produce a large end of summer yield followed by the usual attempt at familiar vegetables for the fall and then have lots to process for the freezer and some squashes to store. Things like that. And put the garden to bed for Dec/Jan/Feb.

keep in mind that kale and swiss chard get sweeter with cold weather. I put in a short row of swiss chard that is just big enough for picking now. I planted it in the bed that I grew garlic in (and harvested late July). I don't think I planted until sometime in August. Last winter I was able to get some locally grown swiss chard at the winter farmers market that was incredibly delicious but had to get there early before it sold out.

I think you have to weigh the different goals. I don't want to grow too many green beans because we don't like they canned or frozen. But I like lots of garlic, peppers and tomatoes and winter squash. I think my swiss chard row is only 8 feet long. I have a patch of spinach in my high tunnel that is only about 3x4'. But, I have had spinach winter over outdoors. Looks dead after heavy frosts but it started growing again in March.

The Eliot Coleman books explain the dormant period when there's not enough day light. It depends on latitude. Growth slows down in fall and then gets dormant. I did not get beds ready in the high tunnel in time to plant as much as I should have. Claytonia is a quick grower and tastes pretty good as a salad green.

Start keeping a garden journal so you know when you plant things. what works. What doesn't. Good luck!

To me, tatsoi tastes like a sweeter, crisper version of bok choy. Then again, I'm not exactly a bok choy connoisseur :-). I like it because it's cold-hardy and relatively bug-free and disease-free (for a brassica-family vegetable at least). When I've grown both tatsoi and bok choy together, the bok choy attracted all the aphids. It doesn't grow well for me in spring because of its inclination to bolt, but it's a great fall crop. I have some still growing in high tunnels. In your zone, it'll definitely go through winter if there's a blanket of either snow cover or floating row cover.

I planted my second batch of bok choi when I did the lettuce.

And the lettuce is in the shadiest row, so come the shorter days it hasn't had a lot of sun at all. But at the time, I was concerned about heat.

way too early to pick them, unless you want to eat some. I usually pick everything outside the hoop houses during Thanksgiving week end. We had 23F last night, but everything looks fine.

The collards are in hoop houses for the deep winter, the cardoon, turnip, beets, and daikon were picked yesterday and are in the garage, the rest has some more growth with nights in the 40s. I have lacinato, arugula, radicchio, catalonia, some collard and cabbages out in the open, plus carrots and parsnips in the ground. Of these catalonia is the most sensitive, but it will take a few nights in the 20s.

Defrost, your swiss chard sounds great. How do you use yours? I still have Lancinato Kale that was not sweet in the summer, but I left it there and IâÂÂm hoping it will get sweeter with enough cold weather.

We donâÂÂt enjoy green beans any way but fresh, too. Garlic, Peppers, Tomatoes, Winter Squash, all our favorite vegetables. They get the prime spots.

I planted a patch of spinach, I think you were the one who encouraged me to, saying I could keep Remay over it all winter and it would start growing again in spring? So far, the growth has been really slow, but IâÂÂm hoping for the early spring growth more than anything. We have a very short amount of sunlight, once the sun gets lower in the Fall. A lot of trees around the neighborhood. So maybe thatâÂÂs why itâÂÂs not been growing much.

I have kept a garden journal for years, but I havenâÂÂt put a separate space for planting times. In the format I have now, it would be a search to find where I wrote down when I planted, what. I think IâÂÂm going to add another document for just the start and harvest dates of everything. Good idea.

SOkra, thatâÂÂs interesting, I wouldnâÂÂt have thought that was what Tatsoi tasted like. I thought it would be bitter. I havenâÂÂt had an issue with aphids and Bok Choy. ItâÂÂs been pretty pest free and more so than the Cabbages and Broccolis. Do you use Tatsoi, the same way you would use Bok Choy?

Ltilton, glad to know youâÂÂve been able to grow the lettuce in a fair amount of shade. Guess I am going to have to plant bok choy and lettuce earlier next year. Thanks.

Glib, Ohâ¦all the way to Thanksgiving, thatâÂÂs great, I havenâÂÂt picked it yet and it still has a sheet over it. IâÂÂm going to get out there this morning and take it off and see how it did with the bad weather yesterday.

You grow a lot for Fall Harvest. I guess IâÂÂm going to have to plan better and try to get a little more production from my small plot. Thanks.

I get a lot of use out of my garden journal, especially on planting/harvest times.

I don't know that I'd do fall planting so early every year. This one was an extreme. But I like to take chances. The rewards can be worth it when you bet the right way.

I'm in RI so I'm not far from you. I've got my winter lettuce in a raised bed covered with Agribon cover. I've noticed it really makes a huge difference in how far you can extend the season with a cover. I'll be picking from this bed until December for sure, even if the temps drop to freezing. The beds are also very close to the house so that keeps things just a little warmer as well.

I got the Agribon on Amazon if that helps.

Ltilton, thanks for that clarification. YouâÂÂre right this year was different than other years here too.

Mikeâ¦.thanks very much for the tip on Amazon!
I have two small patches of spinach planted the same time and I only had enough Abribon to cover one patch and itâÂÂs amazing how much better that one is growing.

Over here, it's supposed to get down to 2 degrees F next Tuesday, with a high of 12 degrees F!

I have tatsoi, mustard greens and swiss chard underneath multiple layers of row cover inside an unheated hoophouse. I will be throwing on some bubble wrap over the row covers for additional protection. It will be interesting to see if the chard makes it - I'm 100% sure the rest will.

SOkra, I forgot you are in z2! What a challenging climate you garden in. Wow. I guess you would have to have a hoop house. Why are you sure the rest will make it, have you done it before? How do you eat the tatsoi and mustard greens? Bubble wrapâ¦do you have to use a lot of it? How many layers of row cover? I would like to hear how everything fares after those lows.

Here in balmy z6, we have not had a freeze yet and the leaves on the trees in my yard are still not down yet. It's a little later than usual. It was 60 degrees yesterday, but Saturday and Sunday it's going into the 40s. I think we are due to have a low of 29 soon, so we'll see.

I usually just give chard a quick boil but I've been adding young leaves to salads. I have a recipe folder for each kind of vegetable group (although zucchini gets its own). I have tried an Italian dish for stuffed chard rolls (too much work), chard quiche, etc.

The extra cold (27?) temps two nights in a row did in the last of the peppers and tomatoes. I had picked most of the peppers and hadn't given anything extra protection. Romaine seedlings are still doing fine inside the high tunnel.

Slimy Okra, well done!

I planted a six-pack each of two kinds of Chinese cabbage which is more like a lettuce/mustard. They are doing fine in the high tunnel, too. If you think about it, a six-pack is a lot of food when it matures. The plants are about 12 inches tall but still need to develop a lot of interior leaves. Inner small young leaves are going into a salad. The big outer leaves were chopped up for a stir fry.

prairiemoon,

Yes, I like to experiment with how far I can push cold-tolerant veggies in my zone. Eliot Coleman's Winter Harvest Handbook has proven to be quite informative, although I also do my own experimenting. Tatsoi is hardy to the low teens, a temperature that is reached under row covers inside a hoophouse when it's something like 15 below or 20 below outside - we usually don't get that weather until late November. I can't really grow anything from December through February though - it's just far too cold, dark and dry. In mild years I can overwinter tatsoi and spinach but that doesn't happen very often. I like using tatsoi and mustard greens in stir fries.

I have two layers of light Agribon. This will actually be the first time I'm experimenting with bubble wrap - I will put it on today (the last warm day of the season - a high of 44 degrees forecast!). I'll let you know how they fare next week! The latest update calls for 0 F on Wednesday.

slimy o - Have you tried any of the overwintering varieties offered by Territorial Seed? I've wondered how well they work.

Thanks Defrostâ¦IâÂÂm always looking for recipes for using garden produce. I just started a book by Alice Waters right now, called âÂÂThe Art of Simple Food IIâÂÂ. Do you have a favorite recipe for using something from your garden?

SOkra, I enjoyed Eliot ColemanâÂÂs book but itâÂÂs been a long time since I read it. I have not been able to put into practice all his suggestions, but I think of him as such an accomplished and innovative gardener. Your experiment with the Bubble Wrap, is very interesting and look forward to hearing how it works out.

I always do experiments of low temps this time of year and then never record the information. Lettuce turns ugly below 25 degrees but doesn't necessarily die. I had lettuce overwinter last year in MN. I have never grown regular bok choy, only baby bok choy. I had some uncovered the other day due to winds blowing the row cover and it did great at 23. I usually do 2-3 layers of row cover on all the cold hardy crops and get several extra weeks out of them.

I am very pleased with my current method of harvesting and freezing "trash" greens at the end of season, for the purpose of making soup through the winter. We are did some experiment last winter and now we have gone all in. I have about 30 lbs of greens ziplocs in the freezer.

Trash greens for me are turnip tops, daikon tops, beet greens (specially the greens from Chioggia beets, which are like small, tough chard), and the celery that overruns my garden. A ziploc of these, plus beans, potato, onion, carrot, and a couple garlic heads and chilies for flavor (in several tries, I have also thrown in bad turnips, okra, zucchini, squash and frozen tomatoes, no problem), boiled in broth, will give you a good gallon of soup, which once strained can be considered blended minestrone minus the fibers.

Lo and behold, my daughter eats it every night, with or without enticing baked croutons, herbed salt and olive oil on top (well, she always puts the olive oil and salt on top, but no need to bake croutons). So I am sitting on a gold mine of greens for the winter. This soup is the trick my mother used to make her numerous children eat vegetables, and it works. I should have thought of it 15 years ago.

Minnie, why do you grow baby bok choy over full size? Does it mature faster?

Glib, great story about your MomâÂÂs soup, a wise woman. :-) I have added the greens to soups and then stocked the freezer with those. For some reason I thought freezing greens without putting them in something liquid might produce a lot of freezer burn, but I guess it doesnâÂÂt. When you say a couple of garlic heads, did you mean âÂÂclovesâÂÂ?
And the only thing you freeze are the greens, right? You add the other items when you make the soup?

I do add a head of garlic per gallon, two if small. It gives a nice taste, but not too strong, same for chillies. I have frozen greens for many years, in ziplocs, but it was mostly celery for clear soup. They make the same soup as fresh vegetables. The rest of the stuff is storage vegetables, unfrozen, but we have many ziplocs of paste tomatoes in the freezer, so those find their way into the soup too. Same for frozen string beans, specially those that are overripe (too stringy). The essentials seem to be the dried beans for flavor and texture, the greens for nutrition, and the spices for flavor. It is not a soup pot, it is a trash can!

A healthy trash can, like a compost pile. :-) Thanks Glib.

ltilton,
No, I have not, but thanks for the suggestion. I will check it out for next year. The biggest challenge with overwintering in high tunnels here is how dry the soil becomes by late winter, which is usually when the plants succumb. This is the first year that I have underground irrigation lines to the tunnels. Prior to that, I used to go in once a week starting in February to dump snow over the plants for moisture. That got old really fast, but it did boost survival rates.

Polar vortex is coming. We will go down to 21 midweek, which is quite a bit below average. Today I picked all chard, all cabbage, all catalonia, and all the sage leaves to make herbed salt.

I then did some triage based on past experience because I can tarp only two beds. These will be both radicchio beds. The collard outside the hoop houses and the lacinato will have to tough it out. The sorrel is also out in the open. Hope it survives because we like our sorrel soup for Thanksgiving.

I want to add a nice thick layer of chopped leaves and grass clippings to all my vegetable beds and be done for the season. All my beds are done except for two vegetable beds with plants still growing in them. One has a small patch of lettuce and bok choy, that we will eat early this week and the rest of the bed has Kale plants that are still going strong. I'm still deciding whether to leave those and mulch around them, or cut all the leaves off and freeze them, pull the plants and cover the whole bed with mulch for the season. It's supposed to be lows here of --

31 Thurs/29 Friday/28Saturday.

Is that going to do in my Kale plants or lessen the quality of the leaves?

The other bed has two patches of spinach growing in them and I'm considering just leaving them until spring to see if they will regrow in March. Can I cover the spinach with a thick layer of chopped leaves or is that going to smother them? Is it different to leave them covered with Agribon?

Glib, I was wondering if you do anything special to your greens that you freeze? Do you wash them off first and dry them and just put them in ziplock freezer bags? Same with paste tomatoes? Or do you blanch the tomatoes before freezing?

The year I over-wintered spinach seedlings we didn't have much snow cover at all plus I didn't put anything on top of them. They did fine.

Great thread you started, Prairie Moon! I don't have a favorite recipe because I keep exploring and trying new recipes. On Friday I roasted the last of my cherry tomatoes and did a small batch of caramelized tomatoes in an 8x8 pan. OMG, they are "candied". I could have eaten the whole pan. I pour them into a small container with all the olive oil/sugar liquid so I hope they keep a few days so I can make a very special salad. Original recipe was just tomatoes, scallions, and a cheese.

Made scalloped potatoes on Thursday using a mandolin which I'm glad I bought but rarely use. 1/8" slices. Have also used to make Zuni Café zucchini pickles.

I am going to mulch my garlic bed (which I still need to plant!) with straw according to article in Hippo Press by the Gardening guy. He claimed straw smothers weeds in spring and garlic grows right thru. I will re-use the straw I used on potatoes.

When I have my own veggies and herbs, I have more to experiment with. For example, I made dillweed salt one year with surplus dill and enjoyed using it. I might not have searched for such a recipe if I hadn't had a surplus I wanted to make good use of.

BTW having a yard pump in my high tunnel was a fantastic addition. It also put my water faucet next to my vegetable garden so I no longer have a very long hose draped across the driveway. It might be what Slimy is doing. Fortunately, my husband knew about such things. It can be used in winter as long as I drain the hose very very well. Waterline is buried below frost level.

It's general best to blanch vegetables before freezing. I put roasted cherry tomatoes in snack size bags and then put a bunch of little bags into a large freezer bag.

Great info about the spinach. IâÂÂd be pretty excited to see Spinach regrowing in the spring. I havenâÂÂt liked trying to start spinach in the spring. There are only two small patches in a long 17ft bed and I feel guilty that IâÂÂm not building up the soil over the winter, but IâÂÂve decided that I will just mulch around the patches and in the spring, IâÂÂll grow all spring crops in that bed and when they are done, that will be my one bed that IâÂÂll cover crop the rest of the season. I think that will work out fine.

IâÂÂve never tried roasting cherry tomatoes, it sounds delicious! My mouth is wateringâ¦lol. We always eat them raw so fast, there hasnâÂÂt been enough to cook with. For some reason I ended up with only one Sungold tomato plant this season. Have no idea how I did that. Never again, we love those and never had enough this year. IâÂÂm planning at least three plants of just Sungold next year. IâÂÂm also going to grow âÂÂFourth of Julyâ again. That was a pretty early and dependable larger than a cherry tomato by about 3x, and we used those all season.

You are adventurous, using a mandolin. :-) We have not bought one yet. IâÂÂm surprised, my daughter hasnâÂÂt given us one for Christmas yet, as she loves kitchen tools.

You have an excellent point, about how much more experimentation we can do when we have a surplus. My garden has been so small for years, that we rarely had a surplus. lol So how do you make dillweed salt?

Sounds like you have a great set up for your High Tunnel with the water faucet line brought out there. Our property is so small, the vegetable beds are very close to the house, so thatâÂÂs not an issue, but I had soaker hoses in all our raised beds this year and never got it working the way I planned. IâÂÂm going to have to rethink that over the winter. I may switch to drip or at least add some attachments to the soaker hoses, to get them all to water evenly at the same time. ThereâÂÂs always something to work out.

Thanks for the tip about putting the smaller bags into the larger bag, great idea.

I got the lettuce yesterday, I'll get the bok choi and kale Monday, before the upcoming cold front. The kale, at least, might have survival potential, but Monday is probably going to be my last chance to till the garden for spring. So everything goes, except for perennials and my experimental covered row of onion seedlings.

Storage refrigerator is stuffed, so the rest of the bok choi and kale will have to take their chances on the enclosed porch.

tomatoes are blanched. Greens are coarsely chopped so the unwieldy stalks fit into the bags. Other than that, just a quick wash.

Great infoâ¦very helpful to know what everyone else is doing with all the weather changes to the typical growing season.

Thanks for the freezing help from everyone too.

Yes, I have a water pipe buried below the frost line, although a small section is above ground and needs to be blown with compressed air each time I use it. Last winter was abnormally cold and dry though. The frost penetrated the ground to 10-11 ft instead of the usual 4-5 feet, and so I was blowing the entire pipe with air after every use, right until late April. What a pain.

prairiemoon,
The first results are in. Today's high was 16 F with a low of 2 F. Inside my triple-layered low tunnel, the high was 42 F with a low of 28 F. It was overcast all day, so the only heat was residual from the ground plus whatever little sun penetrated through the clouds. I was pretty surprised.

SOkra, that's quite a difference between outside air and inside the Tunnel. What do you mean by triple layered low tunnel? The Agribon fabric over the crops inside, or triple plastic on the low tunnel?

I assume all your crops are still fine.

Two layers of light Agribon and a layer of light bubble wrap. It's actually quadruple protection if you consider the high tunnel itself as a layer.
I'm sure the plants are fine inside, although I won't check until we get a sunny day when it rises above freezing inside the entire high tunnel.

dill salt is about half dill weed and half kosher salt whirled in a blender or food processor. It will keep thanks to all the salt. Does not need refrigeration.

Finally got the garlic planted today with help from my husband because I'm such a procrastinator. Despite below 60 degrees, we were sweating in flannel shirts. Covered bed with straw.

For me, I cannot get a successful spinach crop unless I plant it as early as possible in the spring (i.e. early April) and the bed should have a layer of composted horse manure.

Slimy, your high tunnel sounds great. I am mystified how the ground never freezes. I did not get lettuce transplanted. I think I'll see if it survives the cold hitting us tomorrow.

We make herbed salt, equal amounts of chives, rosemary, and sage, kosher salt, in the processor. Goes everywhere, and best done around fourth of July. It will be OK even with moister herbs, such as mint and oregano, but then the "salt" becomes a bit cakey.

The cold hasn't really hit yet. While other parts of New England got some snow, we didn't and today it's sunny again (near Concord NH). I watered veggies in the high tunnel. The un-transplanted romaine was seeded in a large plastic pot. I had a tomato cage made from concrete reinforcing mesh just large enough to fit over the pot. I covered with 3 layers of Agribon. I'll have to watch the temp today. We have an indoor/outdoor thermometer in the kitchen window so I can check how hot/cold it is in the high tunnel. I'm not only procrastinating but experimenting to see if the tomato cage/Agribon protection works until it gets colder.

But, I'll also harvest some for tonight's salad. There is also some arugala that seeded itself. Right now the inside of the high tunnel looks pretty bad although old pepper and tomato plants have been removed.

glib, thanks for the herb salt tip. Bet it tastes great on chicken.

It was 22F this morning, and it will go up to 34F today, but it will stay below freezing, minimum at 16F, all day next Tuesday. The ground will freeze tomorrow, which is one month ahead of schedule. Last year too it was one month ahead of schedule. Temps will briefly exceed 34F next Thursday. Not happy. I did post earlier that my final harvest is Thanksgiving weekend, but that is in a normal year.

It was 8 below today. Hoping for some sunny 20s next week so I can harvest my tunnel greens.

I see a few more posts here. Sorry, IâÂÂve had a crazy week and didnâÂÂt get back here.

Defrost, thanks for the Dill Salt recipe. IâÂÂm going to have to try that. The weather has been really nice up until the cold snap. It was 26 degrees on our back porch this morning. I looked out the window and even my whatâÂÂs left of my Kale looks like itâÂÂs had it. IâÂÂm going to have to check it later when it warms up.

ItâÂÂs been difficult the last few springs to get planting in early April. And I used to try to get my peas planted on St PatrickâÂÂs Day, but I canâÂÂt remember the last time I was able to do that.

Glib, thatâÂÂs a nice recipe too. I wonder, do you put any raw rice at the bottom of the salt shaker to keep the moisture down and prevent caking?

Wowâ¦this cold from the Polar Vortex is really extensive. I wonder if we will remain cold or if we will get another warm spell.

8 Below, SOkra?? lol That would really drive me crazy this time of year. IâÂÂve never lived further north than zone 6, so that sounds very foreign to me. IâÂÂm sure you are used to it.

I'm used to it but I still dislike it! If it's less harsh than last winter, I would be relieved. December last year had an average low of 13 below and the frost didn't completely come out of the ground until July.

It has to be really hard to garden in that climate. I can't imagine the ground still having frost in July. I was frustrated last spring because it was May before I could start planting. Wow. I HOPE it will be less harsh this year for you too!! :-)

No shaker for herb salt (or as we call it, roast salt), it will not shake, it is too caky. It sits in jars in the fridge, we take one jar out at a time, take a pinch as needed. It is only 1/3 salt, so you can pinch more.

Now see, I would have made that 1/2 and 1/2 and tried to put it in a shaker. Thanks for the details. That will work well. :-)

I planted in May as well. It's just the very deep ground frost (6 to 10 foot depth) that took until July to thaw. Not really a big deal to me as a gardener, but it caused a lot of headaches for utility companies, construction, etc.

PM2 - A ways back you asked about where to get spun bond row cover. Johnny's carries it in two weights, one for summer mainly to keep insects off, though I have used it for fall frost protection stretched over hoops of black plumbing pipe, this year allowing me to harvest peppers and cherry tomatoes until 2 weeks ago. I've never harvested warm weather crops into November, and I've been gardening in this town for 34 years. The other is specifically for winter protection and is a heavier weight. Where you are, with a combination of plastic sheets or bubble wrap and spun bond on hoops over rows, I imagine that you can harvest until the first heavy snow.

My redbor kale is still out in the garden totally unprotected, and it's fine even though the temperatures have been down to 20 degrees the last two nights. It is deep purple and ruffled, gorgeous to the point that one of my neighbors stopped to ask what it is. (During the summer it was more blue-purple, and while attractive enough that I plant one in a container of ornamentals each year, didn't stand out as much as now in an empty garden). I mostly eat it as I am out working in the garden - a grab and go salad - since DH isn't fond of cabbage family veggies. I grow kale, broccoli and edible podded peas since I love them, but don't grow many crops just for myself.

I have in past years started spinach in the fall for early spring greens, and as with Defrost, it works well. I am warmer in the fall than she is, but I think colder in the spring - I am a slight bit further south but in a river valley so get late spring frosts. The spinach was fine, and under a row cover might start up earlier.

When we had raised beds with weeping soaker hoses at a previous house, each bed had its own separate line that we could switch on. It was a while ago, but as I remember, it watered evenly and was easy to use.

Thanks to all who contributed to the directions on herbs that work well in salt and proportions. Someone gave me some rosemary salt, and it's been lovely on popcorn, so I've been meaning to look up how to do it.

I haven't spent a lot of time on this forum, though I have been growing organic veggies since I was in my teens. The recent posts listing in the sidebar has pulled me over here recently. Thanks to all for such great information!

SOkra, ohhhâ¦.now I understand. That makes more sense and more tolerable to a gardener.

Babs - Thanks for the info about the row covers. Nice that you were able to harvest peppers and tomatoes so late. IâÂÂm going to have to do something for next spring about hoops over the beds. I had planned on building cold frame covers for our raised beds, but we didnâÂÂt get to that yet, either.

I bought a Kale mix from Fedco this year and I have four different Kales out there right now unprotected as well. They seem to be doing okay. Even what was left of the lettuce and bok choy looks okay. We had 26degrees on the back porch for two days in a row, so I am surprised, but youâÂÂve been colder, so I guess I am all set. Right now we are using Kale in stir fries but will be juicing or making smoothies with it soon. No one likes peas here either, so I grow them for myself. They are so sweet and crunchy, I donâÂÂt know whatâÂÂs wrong with them all. lol

I started spinach for the first time in the fall this year, thanks to defrost, and one small patch is uncovered and the other has my last piece of ripped Reemay over it. [g] So IâÂÂm hoping they will overwinter as well.

I never did take the time to solve the soaker hose issues I had this season. We ended up watering each bed one at a time. Over the winter, IâÂÂm going to work out how I am going to do that next season. Either some kind of attachments that will allow all the soaker hoses to water at once, or I may switch to a drip system.

Glad to see you posting here and hope to see more of you. :-)

This is a very interesting and informative thread to follow. I know it has veered off from the original question but sometimes that's a good thing !

I agree, Deeby, and as long as a thread follows the natural progression of the conversation, it works. That kind of a thread does seem to develop what you describe. It's not like we all started talking about woodworking. [g]