So, I have quite a variety of cool weather veggies coming along here at Tradition Manor. Onions, softneck garlic, broccoli, carrots, lettuce and spinach.
This weekend's forecast cold snap has this Florida boy a little spooked. I know the onions and the broccoli will be fine. They're big and hardened off. And of course, the garlic prefers it to be cold.
But the carrots are just sprouts with their first showing of true leaves. Should I worry about them?
And I sowed the spinach and lettuce seeds on Sunday. The weather has been cool, cloudy and misty, perfect for a great germination situation, but nothing popping up yet, and I wouldn't expect that until after Christmas at the earliest.
But my question is, should I cover the lettuce and spinach seedbeds with frost blankets to prevent the soil from getting too cold? They're in 18-gallon self-watering tubs up on a deck, not in the ground, so the soil temperature is much closer to actual air temperature, and we're potentially headed down into the high 20s two nights straight, and below 40 for four nights. I've read that germination for lettuce and spinach won't happen below 40 degrees, but I don't know if that'll kill seeds after a few days of great germination temps or not.
Any reason to worry about any of these cold hardy crops?
This weekend's forecast cold snap has this Florida boy a little spooked. I know the onions and the broccoli will be fine. They're big and hardened off. And of course, the garlic prefers it to be cold.
But the carrots are just sprouts with their first showing of true leaves. Should I worry about them?
And I sowed the spinach and lettuce seeds on Sunday. The weather has been cool, cloudy and misty, perfect for a great germination situation, but nothing popping up yet, and I wouldn't expect that until after Christmas at the earliest.
But my question is, should I cover the lettuce and spinach seedbeds with frost blankets to prevent the soil from getting too cold? They're in 18-gallon self-watering tubs up on a deck, not in the ground, so the soil temperature is much closer to actual air temperature, and we're potentially headed down into the high 20s two nights straight, and below 40 for four nights. I've read that germination for lettuce and spinach won't happen below 40 degrees, but I don't know if that'll kill seeds after a few days of great germination temps or not.
Any reason to worry about any of these cold hardy crops?