I find outdoors, what gets chard and spinach and the like in cold weather is the wind damage combined with the cold, you get brown and white cold-burned spots and leaves, and general decline. Right now, the chard in the pic is right beside 2′ oats, so it’s nice and sheltered. If the plants have some sort of windbreak, the freeze-thaw stuff alone doesn’t seem to matter, at least until the ground freezes up. Of course, in full winter, if they’re outdoors without the greenhouse effect, they’ll eventually just stay frozen, and if you cut before thawing, I think they tend to mush out (I haven’t done that…often :).

I checked out your farm site. You have a great tomato growing tips page!! How do you manage all the varieties, as far as harvest and sorting? Every year, I grow 50 varieties (most only 6-12 plants), but I end up never having the time to organize even a fraction by variety for market sales. I doubt there’s a shortcut, it’s just time, but I’d like to be able to take to market even a few contrasting varieties in one week, with individual description cards… Tips?!

Tom: Thanks! As we head into winter, get ready for lots of close-ups of TOOLS, books, IMPORTANT SHEETS OF PAPER…until seedlings start up in Feb. I’m gonna try to keep up the daily posting!