December 22, 2024

VIDEO: First frost of autumn, many vegetables are fine and a few not


I show you vegetables which will probably suffer a little damage. There is always uncertainty! It’s only seven weeks until winter Solstice, so there are no more tomatoes or squash to worry about – we cleared those plants in October.
We are forecast -1C/39F, but for 3-4 hours duration, which makes it worse! So I cover the hearts of Chinese cabbage, and I show a fleece or row cover of 30gsm/1oz per square yard thickness. At the beginning you see insect mesh, less warm but also protecting a little against frost.

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Filmed 3rd November at Homeacres no dig garden in Somerset, SW UK, zone 8 climate. Nicola Smith on the iPhone 11S. Were hope the sound is good and apologies for a couple of earlier mistakes with the mic.

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30 thoughts on “VIDEO: First frost of autumn, many vegetables are fine and a few not

  1. Robbie, can I ask you a question about potatoes…
    People advice that you should grow potatoes in bags larger than 5 gallons.
    Do you get more potatoes in large bags?
    The large bag the more potatoes?
    Does it work this way?
    Some garden bloggers advice 30L containers. They say that it is an optimal bag size for growing potatoes…What do you think?

  2. Thank you for another great video Charles! Can you tell me if the metal 'hoops' you're using come ready to stick in the ground or do you cut wire? And what gauge is it? Or if you buy it ready to go where do you get them? I'm getting ready for bigger gardening!! Yay!

  3. Hola que bien ordenado todo,lastima que no entienda inglés, antes había algún video subtitulado en Español,ahora hace un tiempo que no sale.un saludo.

  4. Dear Charles, thank you so much.
    May I ask you too change your adjustments of your chanel and ad spanish subtítulo to your videos?
    I live in Paraguay in South Amerca, I'm German and have to translate your videos all night long to my wife in spansh.
    She would be happy.
    God bless you.
    Saludos cordiales de Paraguay

  5. I have a question for you Charles. Of fleece over hoops, greenhouse, polytunnel; could you rank each in their capability of protecting vegetables from frost please. I know you use all three, so your past experience would be most helpful.
    I tried twin layers of mesh last winter, as that was all I had at the time. It seemed to help my young lettuces surprisingly well. This winter I now have a cheapy greenhouse with thin twin-wall polycarbonate.. Gardening seems to be a series of little experiments to find out what works & what doesn't. Thank you.
    Regards, JohnnyK from Colchester.

  6. I wonder… nature doesnt encourage plants to grow during the dark days of winter. But it seems there are still some vegetables gaining leaves and fruits, has this behaviour added artifically from gardeners or is it a natural behaviour strengthened by farmers with careful selection? Sorry, stupid choice of words, I am no native speaker.

  7. I can't believe that we haven't even had a frost yet in yorkshire… Well, we did but I'm sure we live in a spot where most of the cold weather misses us. It was only one morning but the village was encircled by frost but no frost in the village. It was mild but the surrounding areas had had a hard frost. I can't believe my Cosmos, pansies, geraniums and marigolds still look fresh and healthy. It still looks like summer in the garden, even the passion flower is still flowering and self seeded poppies are flowering again.

    I'm kind of glad because my partner tested positive (asymptomatic, he works in a carehome so gets weekly testing) and my test came back positive too (also Asymptomatic) so we are having to self isolate. We haven't been anywhere other then work since we've been in lockdown. To be honest it seems like it's too little too late. Almost everybody I know now has potential links to Covid-19.

  8. Hi Charles. I read your latest email this morning, where you mentioned in a newspaper article they referred to you as a "cult Gardener". It is sad that in today's world anything that is not main stream is considered a cult. And this no-dig gardening method is the best, no matter what they call it !!!! Keep on keeping on !!!!!

  9. We were accidentally planting cold season plants all summer long in every new garden bed we set up through the year, so now they are finally starting to taste good, after getting eaten down a few times by caterpillars and raccoons when it was warm. When the frost is a month early, we usually try to save the tomatoes and peppers. If it stays below freezing for 24 hours or there's a week of frosty mornings, then the plants have to fend for themselves, unless again it's just too early to let it frost~

  10. Hi Charles, your books and videos are brilliant! We planted garlic cloves and onion sets in our first no dig bed at the start of December and fleeced them. Since then we have had some hard frosts and snow. A lot of the sets and cloves are now sitting up on the surface of the compost pushing the fleece up so we were going to hoop and net them to keep the birds and cats off them but should we put something on them for frost protection still? Many thanks in advance Darryl and Sam.

  11. Charles, what do you do when the many compost layers create too high of a bed? I've seen you put wood boards around the no dig beds, but there must come a time when the compacting affect no longer works and the beds over flow. Do you ever remove old compost? Cheers

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