After two months of winter, we have finally had our first frost! It was a chilly 1.9°C (35.4F) at 7am this morning, which was our coldest day of the year so far. Certainly brass monkey weather!
So when I arose, I inspected the garden for frost damage, and found these lovely frosty cabbages in all their glory. Don’t they look just beautiful?
Frosty Purple Cabbage
Cabbages are frost hardy plants, as are most of the Brassica family of vegetables. All of the kale and sprouting broccoli was similarly frosty, but recovered as soon as the sun hit their leaves.
Whilst inspecting this crop I found a few dead cabbage moth caterpillars that didn’t make it through the frost. I suppose that is one advantage to frost.
These purple cabbages will be delicious in coleslaw in summer salads!
Frosty Sugarloaf Cabbage
As you can see the cabbage heads are forming well and beginning to harden. By the end of this month, I should be swimming in cabbages. We like it steamed, or cooked with a little bacon and garlic. If we have too much, we will probably make some sauerkraut. We are yet to try making out own, so it will be an interesting experiment in fermentation.
You can see what remains of the potatoes around the edges of this smaller cabbage.
Potatoes are not frost tolerant and die off at the first sign of a freeze. I won’t pull them out just yet, because I am hoping they may come back if we manage to avoid another frost until the end of winter. I know there are spuds under the plants because the soil is swelling around the base of the stem.
I have read somewhere that quite a few plants taste better after a frost, as it helps the vegetable develop sugars. Looking forward to harvesting this lot in a month or so. Thankfully, they are all developing at different speeds because I planted three varieties. This way we should avoid a glut, and have to find somewhere to store them all!
So who else got a heavy frost this weekend? Did you lose any vegetables that you were trying to nurse through the winter?
Are you having a harsher than average winter? We’re having a better than average summer. We get the risk of frost from October – May.
Hi Froogs. Quite the opposite. We are having a warmer than average winter. Records being broken every month this year so far. July has been the only month that is on average!
Gav x
Lucky for all of us. I have a suntan!! Unheard of here, normally I just wear a lighter coat
Hi Gav,
those cabbages look delicious! Re your potatoes, I noticed my older neighbor didn’t harvest her potatoes before the frost period started. When I asked about it, she said that they just leave them under the ground to store and dig up as needed. I’ve never tried this, but will next year. My neighbors grow a large, market-style garden and have been doing it forever so I imagine it works.
Madeleine.x
That is good advice about leaving the spuds in the ground. I am going to do the same until I harvest the cabbages, and see what sort of results I get.
Thanks for sharing this tip.
My cabbages too have loved the frost. My spuds got toasted some weeks back but then again most frost sensitive plants around here died out in April! We had a solid freeze here ont he weekend with 2 mornings around -6.5C. I had the pleasure of smashing the ice on my pond yesterday! 😀 This morning is likely around -3C. Sadly my banana in the greenhouse bit the dust again although there is still something looking vaguely alive in there, or there was on Friday so I’ve not given up all hope. My tomatoes are dying off in the greenhouse too. 🙁 I do have 3 green tomatoes on my indoor bush though. 🙂
Lucky you with frozen caterpillars. I found a large one hiding deep inside a cabbage that survived! 🙁
Very chilly Jessie! Maybe it’s time for double glazing in the greenhouse 😉
Great looking cabbages Gav. Everything is sorta doing OK. The soil in the raised beds is about a foot below the top and so veggies are hunkered down and well mulched. Not too much frost here but jeepers, the nights have been cold. Im trying to decide whether to make covers for the beds using hooped conduit. If i do it right then i can change the covers over from polysheet in winter to shade cloth in summer. Hmmm thinking thinking, do i really need to or is it just another project for the sake of it.
Hey Lynda! I think that shade cloth may become an essential tool in our quest of growing summer veg. Especially if last summer was anything to go by.
I am thinking about how I am going to do something similar at my place. x
Did you see my wood store, well didya Gav! (Imagine me bouncing around like and excited puppy – i wish). FIGJAM
I did. Very impressive! x
Minus 10.2 here the other night. Our heater is broken, so we are joining the brass monkey challenge by accident! It is currently -3.2 at 8pm.
We’ve only planted peas this year and they are thriving despite the cold and the fact I’ve been forgetting to water them regularly. We are still in our first year here, so it was only yesterday that we put up some wire for the peas to climb up. It will be interesting to see how quickly they take off now they have the chance.
Ooh, that is cold Jamie. Welcome to the BM challenge, by proxy!
Stay warm,
Gav