Now that we've had our first snow (4", and following record high temps around 70 just two days prior!), there's a lot of curiosity about what's growing outside in our gardens. I pulled off the floating row cover today following last night's snow, and the photos we took during that operation give a great view of the front lawn vegetable beds. The reason for removing the row cover comes with an admission of stupidity: I knew better than to use little dinky wire hoops to hold up the row cover. I knew better because the greatest pundit of winter gardening in New England, Eliot Cowen, insists that one should use something like electrical conduit instead for this very reason. But I allowed myself to be talked into the little dinky wire set-up, and the wires either fell over and partly collapsed in the snow load. Mea culpa! Let's hope we can get a better alternative together before REAL snow comes -- this was only 4", and it wasn't as wet and heavy as it could have been.
The vegetables were a little worse for wear, both a bit crushed and frosted on their highest points where the majority of the snow weight lay overnight on top of the plants. But the photos show there are still many vigorous, healthy and happy plants. In addition to the bokchoy and tatsoi marked on the photos here, there are two types of turnips (the Milan having already been picked for dinner tonight), Mibuna, a Napa-type of cabbage, red Russian, Tuscan Chinese and curly kales, parsley, Swiss chard, red mustard, and broccoli raab. We have many more varieties growing in the substantially warmer solar greenhouse, as well as several types of heading cabbage in a more protected outdoor bed not pictured here.
