How to protect your garden from the cold weather
You’ll notice your neighbours packing up their vegetable gardens now that the night time temperatures are getting colder. We wait until the end of October to pack up your Urban Seedling vegetable garden to get the absolute most out of the growing season.
We planted cold tolerant varieties of leafy greens in your garden, and in the city we have the advantage a couple of degrees warmer weather. This makes it easier to extend the season later into the fall. All that you need to do is to protect your garden on the cold nights. Tonight it is supposed to go down to 1 degree! That means that if you want to keep your tomatoes, peppers and eggplants going you will have to cover them with a floating row cover or light sheet. This traps the warmer air near the plant and gives them an extra 3 or 4 degrees to get them through the night.
It’s also important to keep on watering your garden, although you’ll notice that the garden won’t dry out as fast as it did in the heat of the summer. Keep hunting for ripe tomatoes in the depths of your tomato vines and keep on picking your beans. Any beans that have been left on the vine too long will be tough and stringy at this time of year, but new young ones are still delicious.
You should be able to start harvesting your lettuce leaves soon. As soon as the plant gets big enough that you can take a couple of leaves off and still leave the ones on the inside growing you can start making salads. I’m glad to have the lettuce back!