You can find more information, photos and advice sheets on all the plants and recipes that we talk

about in this podcast by heading to the links in the show notes or on our website at sarahraven.com.

We've been having a really cold spell

and I was just thinking it might be helpful for everybody

for me to list the things that Josie and I think about here

when we see on the forecast that we've got several nights of frost. So the first thing is really to bear in mind

the things that aren't frost hardy and bring them in. And that might even mean bringing them

into your kitchen. I remember one year when I was about to go off on an away day and we'd already

loaded the van with lots of dahlias tubers and then we had

this massive freeze and so I literally had to unload the whole of the van and bring it all into the

kitchen so that otherwise those tubers would have turned to mush just like potatoes if they're

frosted they turn to mush and so just bear those sorts of things in mind. So

Dahlia's bring them in if they're still in tuba form, don't leave them in your shed, if it's

really cold. And then, I don't know, I mean, things like sparmagnas we grow here, which are

semi-tender shrubs, bring them in, you know, put them in, even if it's like in an open-sided barn,

there at least they'll have two or three degrees of frost protection. Bring them nearer the house.

So, you know, your central heating will hopefully, if you're well insulated, not be leaking out

through your windows, etc. But just in the protection of the walls of the house will make a little bit of difference. So I would say those are both things worth remembering.

Mulching, mulching, mulching. Mulching. Mulching is really good. If you put the mulch on in the autumn

before the first hard frost and then push it away in the spring after the last hard frost and sort of April,

what you do is you seal some of the warmth and moisture into the soil and it doesn't allow the

roots to be exposed to the worst of the cold and the frost. So mulching, mulching,

...