We had an extended period of unusually cold weather in December, colder than I have ever experienced as a grower. A lot of the vegetable plants in the gardens seemed unaffected by the freezing temperatures, but others were seriously damaged, and it will be interesting to see how this cold period affects the biodiversity in the area.
0:00 Extreme Weather
1:00 Climate and Deep Freeze
2:27 Very Hardy Plants
3:49 Not So Hardy Plants
5:44 Damaged Plants
6:59 In The Open or Under Cover
8:59 Frozen Soil
10:31 Wider Impacts
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Part of the Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Tipperary, Ireland http://www.thevillage.ie
30 Comments
In central Texas, we had a record hot summer, followed by some record cold snaps so far this winter. More radical/crazy weather seems to be becoming the norm. How many plants can survive 40C, near drought summers followed by -15C winters. Life is getting more “interesting”. 😬
Writing from Mississauga Canada we had a period of freezing temperature .Still have kale and brussels sprouts in my garden and they are sweeter .Good luck with your garden
Hopefully the slugs will be significantly reduced for you. The other soil inhabitants will likely be fine. I have noticed that snails seem to hide from offending things by going deeper into the vegetables they are eating thereby causing more damage. Here in Florida we look forward to a few nights each year to kill off many of the biting insects and invasive species that plague us. I was quite happy with my papaya and banana trees producing fruit for several years in a row but since we had 4 days of 20 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, all of my tropical edibles are gone. Of course the chard, cabbage, spicy greens, and lettuces are fine.
Thank you for posting!!
mindblowing how tropical sea currents can make ireland so ''hot'' when im at lower lattitude in canada and it was -20c last month lol, we reach -40 at the worst here , been a long time thinking about escaping this bs lol
There's deep freezes here every year and we still have butt loads of slugs.
Hi Bruce :-), thanks for sharing. That frost took me by surprise but more importantly sadly also took away with it most of my long awaited ullucus, oca & yacon harvest (Probably 85% of it) 🙁 . I suppose I now know to harvest those earlier next year just as a precaution. As they say "Better early than sorry" oops that's not it ha ha. On another note, I am considering building of hot bed this year to try to prolonge our irish growing season. Have you got any experience with those? Any thoughts on it? I'll take any advice.
I was disappointed to find (earlier in the season) that my greenhouse "tent" freezes inside just as much as the exposed outside. It doesn't warm up much in the day in winter as the sun is so low and probably blocked by hedges, even though the oak tree that gives it midday shade in summer has no leaves in winter. I haven't yet got a "winter veg" plan, but we typically do get these conditions so better protection or heating would be needed for tenderer "winter" plants. Good to see the hardy ones do well by you – noted! The lack of daylight is also an issue (54° N) so I've got grow lights this year for indoor seedlings (must set that up this weekend!).
Great video. Especially liked how you compared some polytunnel crops to their exposed counterparts. We also had an extended period of brutal freezing temps where I live, just around a week after you. I stored what I could in a small pop-up greenhouse, but constant subzero temps and the unfavorable north-facing position of my setup resulted in most of the plants still not making it.
As you observed, some plants bounce right back following a frost, while others make no improvement and simply go on to rot. I've noticed plants that look almost underwatered in the frost tend to be fine after, while those that take on a darker color and start to look wilted aren't long for this world. The color change and wilting seem to function as a sort of "visual death rattle" for a lot of vascular plants, especially those which are non-resinous and which you don't know whit certainty to be hardy for the temp they're going through.
So it's Canada that you're from… 🙂 Your choice of Caledon for comparison suggests you're Upper Canadian haha. Really enjoy your content and detail!
Since records began, it has never been below zero where I live. Move somewhere warmer.
Most varieties of broccoli regrow the flowering part if you just cut the head off.
Excellent flick! As for the damage outside vs poly tunnel, in my observation a big contributor to the damage is moving the plants when frozen. So maybe plants in the poly did better because there was no wind to move their leaves. Same observation for harvesting frozen plants. Even extremely frost hardy lamb’s lettuce turns into much if harvested frozen, but will be fine if harvested just hours later when allowed to defrost untouched. Greetings from slightly more continental Northwest Germany and I feel you, we had a very unusual early cold spell (about 1 week down to -10 and below freezing mid day). Very unusual here especially in December, so it hit me unprepared and we lost some crops 🙁
I’m in Ireland too. My broad beans aren’t looking too good after the cold snap. I’m leaving them hoping that they will regrow but have some more in modules to fill the gaps where needed. Calabrese looking sad. I think the lesson is to grow a variety of edibles for resilience. Not much consolation but the frost covered leaves were really beautiful in the photos.
Thanks for an interesting video.
We had a similar week in north east Scotland. The wind chill here however is always a big factor with the surrounding mountains covered in snow.
I didn’t lose any vegetables to the frost thankfully. The remaining ones are frost hardy such as carrots and turnips. I need to get better at lifting and storing mine too.
I wonder what could be learned from growers in Canada to mitigate such cold temperatures?
Hi Bruce, How about your Jerusalem Artichokes? They survive the deep cold, but frozen ground is to be considered when harvesting…
Here in central England had 12 days of temperatures going Sub-Zero overnight. Went down to -9.5 C inside my biggest polytunnel at staging level (probably around -12 C outside at ground level).
Most Chard leaves turned to mush outside, but plants in my biggest polytunnel were completely unscathed. The outside plants had only just recovered from a massive attack of caterpillars, the likes of which I've never known before.
I wonder if that Thermacrop fleece makes any difference in weather so cold, other than keeping pigeons off plants.
Thanks for this video, do you have any videos on your root cellar? Thanks
Lol. Why do you grow vegetable plants in the winter? Wait until spring, that is what everyone else does.
Location: Northumberland, UK. I tried growing and over wintering cauliflower. Most had started producing a head. Some where in my greenhouse and others just out in the garden. All the heads have gone black and I'll need to pull the lot. Some broccoli in the greenhouse is looking okay.
Try keeping 2 liter bottles of water inside the net tunnels. The water bottles create a micro climate and protect the plants that can handle freezing weather.
My biggest lost to the frost (-10 in unheated greenhouse) was also giant kohlrabi, winter variety of spinach and chard, but chard is starting to develop new leaves. Surprisingly unaffected were giant radishes (white long Japana), rukola and black radish and Chinese mustard ,carrots and parsnips.
Sad that Bruce is not bluepilled against the climate warming even this deep freeze happened. Anyway thanks for the update.. we need this information when temperatures gets colder in the future. Keep up the good work and take care.
Hello Bruce,
We’re not too far from you and just a word of caution concerning lifting and storing veg. During the deep freeze of 12 years ago I had parsnips, swedes and beetroot stored in sand in plastic dustbins. The bins, ventilated, were in a stone barn and were seated on pallets. Well, everything in the bins froze and I had to take a hatchet to the parsnips to get some for the dinner. All was well after the thaw. What weren’t were the spuds, also in bins (no sand) and they were totally destroyed. This however was a blessing in disguise as the variety was Sarpo Mira, (the first and last time I grew them) and I thought that they tasted awful. Strings of stored onions looked like much that were fine after the thaw.
This year I protected the spud bins with old duvets and pieces of foil insulation. They came through grand.
Neil.
We have similar weather patterns to yourself there, and I was questioning how my tunnel got down to minus 9.5 but didn't kill the same as outside without a chill wind. I can see what you mean about it warming up during the day now, enough to help, and I suppose it did give them some kind of protection too. I lost a couple of broccoli plants but in looking at them they were by the gaps where the back door is, so it'll be a good idea for me to cover those. The chard, beetroot, mustard and Pac Choi in there was ok, surprisingly. And I have chima de rapa (I forget the other name) seedlings in there on a hanging shelf, and covered, which were fine plus some leeks I had sown in December as a bit of an experiment to compare with the ones I'm sowing next week. I lost spinach seedlings and some fennel, but it's all a learning curve really. I just had spare seeds so I wanted to see what would hang on in there. One which surprised me was a romanesco cauli which is still growing and the head is about 2 inches across. Happy days, and all the best for 2023!
We also had a similar week of very cold weather here in NC. I covered my brassicas, onions, and mustard greens and the only ones who did not survive were my bok choy.
We went 2 weeks at just under 0 then 2 days at – 10. My purple sprouting lost all its leaves I think that happened at – 10 I'm hoping they will regrow from the stem but not very optimistic.
That's really surprising to see how many plants actually survived!
My kale and salad plants got last night -22.5 C .. Will see tomorrow what's the result.
Always great information ! Thank you
As always very interesting and it always makes me look at my Canadian garden differently. You encourage my experiments. I am still harvesting parsnips over here and so far, our winter this year has been unusually warm (south shore of Georgian Bay Ontario). Every winter is different. Best, Liz
Interesting! This is similar to typical weather in parts of the Norwegian coast, further north than Ireland but also warmed up from the Gulf Stream. The only annual vegetable that will reliably survive unprotected here is curly kale, but the leaves will usually get ruined from repeated freezing, thawing, snow/hails and wind. The new growth in early spring is great though. In my unheated greenhouse I have also successfully overwintered lettuce, spinach and salad rocket, even with temperatures down to -10C. They do a lot better undercover even if it gets cold there as well.