First post of the new year!
Things have been extremely cold here (for Victoria), with a couple of weeks of snowy days off and on, and a series of well-below freezing days. Usually the temp here hovers around 5 C. I don’t usually do much active gardening during the winter here, but the temperature usually allows for holding a good selection of salad greens through the winter in the unheated greenhouse, and some of the more sheltered raised beds in the garden. With the cold weather, we had a series of days/nights with high winds, which blew one of the cover panels off the greenhouse, so I had abandoned hope of much surviving — everything looked pretty frostbitten and wilty.
When I went out to check on things yesterday, and put the panel back on the roof, I was pleasantly surprised — things growing in the patio: coriander seedlings, rainbow chard, and parsley peeking up from the crowns!
I had mostly emptied the bed under the kitchen window, but there are nice looking beets peeking out from the snow. After the cold snap, they should be nice and sweet! Just shows how sheltered the spot is, even though it got snowed on. I hope to put a cold frame cover on this bed come mid-late February to get a jump start on the salad greens and peas.
In the greenhouse, there were a few surprises: the mizuna which had grown quite vigourously just before the cold snap appears to have survived with only frostbitten tips; there are a few carrot seedlings which are poking up, more parlsey, some lettuce and some more beets!
Finally, out in the other, less protected area of the garden, there is dinosaur kale, chard, welsh onions, and celeriac. We have rabbits in the neighborhood, and it looks like they have been feasting on some of these thru the cold weather, especially the chard and welsh onions!
nice one! Garden