Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: grannyjanny on April 30, 2014, 08:32:40
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Frost given Thursday/Friday night. Strawberries are well on the way so will need covering. What else needs covering please?
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Spuds.
Forecast has improved recenty
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Frost given Thursday/Friday night. Strawberries are well on the way so will need covering. What else needs covering please?
Tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, French beans need protecting. Broad beans and peas can tolerate a bit of frost.
Yes potatoes too, however should the worst happen, potatoes will actually regrow, but the harvest will be delayed by a few days.
Anything will do, doesn't have to be proper fleece or a proper cloche. An upturned bucket over a courgette or a sheet of newspaper, a net curtain, even a black bin liner cut open. As it only stays on for a night, black does not matter.
Hope it doesn't get too cold, but I find that squash and courgette and cucumber plants get harmed if it gets below +3C. Some French beans are also affected at temperatures just above freezing. Might be the difference between ground frost and air frost. Ground frost will kill them, but that can occur at temperatures above air frost.
Hope everything you have planted out survives, if it is still in the greenhouse, it should be ok.
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Thank you folks, I think the forecast is changing but at least I'm now in the know, so to speak :icon_cheers:.
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Its Friday/Saturday night which is forecast to be the worst here.
But then I do not trust them, it is not supposed to be raining at the moment. They do not even seem to have read their own radar images.
I really need to cover my strawberries they are covered in flowers at the moment. The centres go black when they are caught by frost.
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Its Friday/Saturday night which is forecast to be the worst here.
But then I do not trust them, it is not supposed to be raining at the moment. They do not even seem to have read their own radar images.
I really need to cover my strawberries they are covered in flowers at the moment. The centres go black when they are caught by frost.
We are double fleecing them friday after work, got quite a few beds,better safe then sorry
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Just been up to cover the strawberries, best safe than sorry.
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With how clear the sky has been here in Northumberland and the cold easterly wind off the sea all day I'm expecting frost so I wrapped up my pear and apples in bloom nice and cosy with some of the thin foam underlay for laminate floors we had spare. Last year I had some pears just starting to swell till they were hit by late frost and the whole lot were wiped out.
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We put enviromesh on strawberries should do the job I hope?
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I felt the weather changing when I was out potting plants at about 2pm - very nippy!
I too have used enviromesh on my strawberries after having seen the posts here ... I also hope it does the job!
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Brrrrr .... it's COLD!
Spuds and strawverries under various improvised covers - off to the plot soon to take them all off lest they FRY in the sun.
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Brrrrr .... it's COLD!
Spuds and strawverries under various improvised covers - off to the plot soon to take them all off lest they FRY in the sun.
Things badly hit here
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Rather than the +2 in the forecast it went to -1C here. These late frosts are galling after such a warm winter, but unfortunately not uncommon. We have had frosts in early June.
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Frosty here, top of shed and caravan covered. I covered my potatoes, but expect a bit of damage on the plot.
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Frosty here, top of shed and caravan covered. I covered my potatoes, but expect a bit of damage on the plot.
Our spuds were fleeced but all damaged. Not good:(
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Frosty here, top of shed and caravan covered. I covered my potatoes, but expect a bit of damage on the plot.
Our spuds were fleeced but all damaged. Not good:(
Sorry to read that!. Very disappointing having done all the right things and still have damage, but spuds will grow back. Haven't checked mine yet, but expect there is some damage too despite grass mulch and fleece.
Does anybody know how cold it got in their area?
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Fine here in London 3 or 4C I think..
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Glad to hear it Nick.
Just been out. All in greenhouse ok. A cloched and double fleeced squash plant (experiment to get earlier courgettes) looks fine. Not all potatoes are showing here yet. Single fleeced potato plants have some damage on the top leaves on almost every plant, but not extensive, they should shrug it off in a week or so. Peas/Broadies fine and had no protection. Guess the apple blossom will be affected too.
How are everybody else's plants?
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0C here between Nottingham and Derby, frost on the shed roofs and grass. I'd fleeced everything in the greenhouse - toms with fruit formed, begonias, beans - and they are all fine, polythened my Pentland Javelins, fine - glad I did because the volunteer spuds in the JAs have all collapsed to mush.
But round here, we always get frosts in May so I wasn't surprised. I don't feel safe till the first week in June.
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Yes...we had light frost but nothing damaged that I could see this morning :icon_cheers:
I went around plots to check if there is anything particularly that may need bit of cover...and found 1 potato that had just come through, kicked bit of soil over it and it was done :icon_cheers:
Spread little fleece over kiwi plants that has loads of tender new growth on.
In greenhouses I didn't really cover anything else part my little potato plants. All toms were fine.
I did do some watering in GH yesterday...left tomato pots dryish, but all the surrounding soil I watered well, making the bedding dark again to trap lots of heat...there was steam coming up from surface :icon_cheers:..and to touch it was very warm indeed.
So that worked like radiator....kept GH closed up most of the day too to warm everything inside well. :icon_thumleft:
Outside I have few buckets in very sheltered position where I sowed some runner bean seed few weeks ago..those are just coming trough..those got just got upturned empty buckets for protection. They probably didn't need it but it didn't hurt neither...and the young seedlings are fine today :icon_cheers:...hoping some early runners and possibly some 'cleanly' pollinated seeds if there is no other plants yet in flower nearby.. :icon_cheers:
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Max/min thermometer in polytunnel showed -0.2C, plants a tiny bit wilted but not frozen so it wasn't that cold for very long.
Spuds took a bit of a hit under fleece but not too bad. Hope that is the end of it for this year :sunny:
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I went down to the plot about 7 am when it had warmed up quite a bit. But there was still a complete white out. Though things warmed up fast as the sun came from behind the trees. Not sure the actual temperature officially 0.5C at Brize Norton at 5am. But obviously at ground level and not protected by a little white box things were much colder. I would estimate around -2C considering the amount of ice. There was ice on anything plastic and any water on the top of compost bins was frozen solid. Not sure whether we will escape another dose of cold tonight.
I had managed to cover most of my strawberries so they look bonny. I covered the potatoes with straw so they were fine too. But there is a scene of devastation on other plots. I covered most of a friends potatoes. There were about six people there last night covering things and earthing up, not sure where everyone else was but they will be regretting it.
The rhubarb leaves were drooping and looked very sad, but it is made of sterner stuff and within a few minutes of the suns warmth it was back in business.
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Gosh Digeroo you did get it bad. I don't think we were affected after all. We did get the strawberries covered & will leave it overnight tonight just in case. Like yours they are looking nice & bonny.
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We are a long way from the sea so tend to get bad frosts. It is amazing how many times Raf Benson or sometimes Brize Norton is the coldest place in the country.
I have taken my covers off, but may decide to replace it for tonight. Though they have now amended the forecast to a minimum of 6C, so we should be ok. The wind has changed round to the south. My car says it 17C at the moment so it is quite hot out in the sunshine.
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At to scrape the ice of the car at 7am this morning in Swindon. Not far from Digeroo.
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Not so bad in central Birmingham, but my spuds were well frosted. Never mind, they'll soon grow back.
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Not so bad in central Birmingham, but my spuds were well frosted. Never mind, they'll soon grow back.
Same here down in Boldmere. Very black and limp looking spuds
Nige
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Frost came to Denmark a day later so my potatoes looked a bit sad. But I had earthed up so only the tips look sad. Volunteer potatoes not affected - how’s that for unfair? Strawberries and apple blossom look OK. Curious. But I am relieved that everyone says potatoes will survive!
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Because of the relatively mild weather I have been tempted to plant out a number of things but didn't
14th May has always been my planting out date and as I have generally done everything this year roughly one week before my normal dates I am going to get on with my planting out in the incoming week
Will decide after I watch Countryfile tonight!
I have lost stuff to frosts in the first week in June in the past so its a case of "once bitten" with me now!
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Here in East Sussex, allotment neighbours have put out runners and courgettes into open ground over the last 7 days. My daughter in Greenwich has nagged me to deliver and plant tender seedlings. Am I a pessimist?
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Not a pessimist - I think you're being a realist artichoke. You "might" get away with it planting stuff out early May - but I would only do that if I had backup plants spare in case a frost comes.
I'm not far from Digeroo ... and I always treat the very end of May as the safe time for planting things out ... but even then a bit of freaky weather in June can mess things up.
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Be very careful, May is a very tricky month...How do I know.. :BangHead: :BangHead:
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Not a pessimist - I think you're being a realist artichoke. You "might" get away with it planting stuff out early May - but I would only do that if I had backup plants spare in case a frost comes.
I'm not far from Digeroo ... and I always treat the very end of May as the safe time for planting things out ... but even then a bit of freaky weather in June can mess things up.
Too right Squeezy! I have twice lost plants in early June and so have many others on the 'spine' of the country - where it really is much colder than near the coasts.
The first time we had a June frost I lost half the beans of a new variety I had just swapped with a gardener from Bristol. I was so glad that 6 plants made it and saved seed from those plants. By chance I grew their descendants when we got a June frost more recently. I lost a number of plants but those 'survivor' beans just shrugged it off. The seeds I have now seem to be fairly hardy.
French beans will never be able to tolerate a lot of frost, but even so, there are differences when it gets close to freezing.
Overall I think we are now seeing more late frosts than when I started gardening some 35 or so years ago. Generally the weather has gone 'whackier'. Do others have the same experience? Or am I getting to the age that I remember things from decades ago with rose-tinted glasses?
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I remember a first-week-in -June frost in Coventry 40 years ago, the nursery down the road lost all their tender bedding etc, it was a sad sight next morning. So no, I don't think it's a recent phenomenon, unlike the torrential rainstorms which I'm sure are more frequent and violent than they used to be.
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I remember a frost on June 16th in the early 2000's, but then last summer and the one before both produced several June frosts. The thunderstorms are easier to judge as we get flash floods so we keep an eye on them. The first year I was on the plot - 1990 - we were flooded three times. After the third time, we got someone down from Severn Trent to advise us. He said the first two were 'ten year events', which will happen occasionally, but the third was a 'hundred year event', and unlikely to happen again. Since then, there's been some remedial work done upstream which helps a bit.
Despite that, we still get flooded every couple of years, and they're getting worse. A hundred-year event every other year needs to be reclassified!
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The concept of 'one in one hundred (or however many) years' events can only be valid in a static situation. In a dynamic climate pattern, they are nonsense.
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Of course, but at that time, we were still assuming the climate was pretty much a given.
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There is a site that will give you an idea of the first and last average date for frost in your area here.
http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/main/weather1.asp
Where I live in Birmingham it's early May so I never bother putting anything out before then. I planted out some broad bean plants just before the frost (but they are very hardy -you can overwinter them!) and my spuds didn't go in until a week before so the tops wouldn't have been up yet.
Still can be caught though! I remember a frost in early June!
How do gardeners in the Grampians ever grow anything vaguely half-hardy!
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Robert - I see you are at Chad Brook Allotments. Presumably the stream is part of the cause of the flooding.
I'm at Coney Green Drive Allotments in Northfield and we have regular flooding problems in winter being near the river Rea and on clay soil coupled with a sandstone ridge under part of the site. Some plotholders are thinking of planting rice
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Since its next to the main West Cost railway line you would think someone would be concerned!! Fortunately I'm on an uphill part of the site!
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How do gardeners in the Grampians ever grow anything vaguely half-hardy!
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Poly tunnels, cloches and fleece! Of course in a bad winter you then have to clear the snow off the roof of the poly tunnel each morning, and I have gone out to find the safety glass on the greenhouse (installed because the ordinary glass exploded in a gale and covered the garden in shards of glass) bending under the weight of snow. The north east has quite a dry sunny climate and the days are long in summer so we got very good crops outside on a south facing plot once they got going. Cornwall, where we live now is another world.
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Thanks redalder. interesting to hear how people grow things in other parts! When I was in holiday on the Scilly Isles the owner of the B&B said he had to tie his cabbages down with tent pegs to stop the wind blowing them away!!
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The stream is the problem, though I'm actually at the Guinea Gardens. It's an old mill leat, and I'm between it and the natural stream course. So there's lots of waterlogging, plus the flash flooding.
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There is a site that will give you an idea of the first and last average date for frost in your area here.
http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/main/weather1.asp
Difficult list that - I live in Maidstone, the county town of Kent, not included!? Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge also not included - Canterbury also not included. Why, because I think it's based on weather station locations so you have to go through and find your nearest weather station which might be an obscure village some way away.