They say it's going to be a hard winter this year, what with La Nina and so on. So we've been planning how to help our winter plants to make it safely through the cold months. Above all, we're concerned to cover them - both against frost and snow - so we've devised an easy DIY solution for covering whole garden beds.
The photo shows our kale and cabbage plants under a framework of PVC piping and rebar. We'll cover the frame with floating row cover - a white fabric that lets in light, but that hopefully will keep the plants just those few degrees warmer to make the difference between freezing and survival.
We cut the rebar to 2-foot lengths (or if you don't have a saw, you can buy it already cut, in some stores), then sink them into the ground on opposite sides of the bed - leaving about about 8 inches of rebar aboveground. Then we test out the length that the PVC pipe (3/4" internal diameter) needs to be to fit over the rebar - and cut it to the correct length (any saw will cut the pipe, so you should be able to do this part yourself!). Then settle the piping over the rebar, to form the arches.
Because we are concerned about snow as well as frost, we also decided to tie a pole along the length of the bed, from arch to arch at the height of the arches - to keep the fabric from collapsing on the plants should it eventually snow.
Who knows whether we'll need it this winter!?
Above: One of our cabbages as of October 15th.
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