Anyone growing vegetables over winter?  

I've just seen some cheap poly-tunnels in a seed catalogue that are quite cheap, I might buy one of them to protect from the frost. This summer was quite good for vegetables it was quite warm, but still not as much sun as we really need.

Yes they will definitely help. I don't think this summer was that good actually. It was less wet than the summer we had last year but we didn't get enough consistently warm days.

I had a dwarf lemon tree, too, when I lived in Vancouver. It produced, too.

I had a chance to get a free lemon tree with a gardening magazine I get I would have just needed to pay postage, but I think I'm probably too late now. I like kale and might try and grow some of them, I might also try some winter onions.

Forgot to mention that I planted out some lettuce seedlings today. They're about 3" tall. If this pleasant weather continues til the end of the month, they should be fine. Then I'll have to rig up some sort of coldframe for them.

Yes I've seen a good small poly-tunnel you can put up just over the flower bed in a seed catalogue I have I might order one.

I heard a great recycling tip for building your own cold frame. It mentioned going to renovation sites and poking around or asking if they were throwing out any old windows (with the glass still in the frames). They're great to place on top of bales of hay or any old wood that you can build into a box around your veggies. You can keep them tightly together or separate them whenever you need more or less heat.

The problem is in finding those renovation sites! I've yet to come across any, although I did see a rather run-down shack of a house that had some storm windows literally falling off the place and have been so tempted to just go and grab them because I doubt I'll ever find out who the owner is. It's obvious that no one lives there and hasn't for quite some time. But, knowing my luck, there would be a police car parked somewhere just out of sight who would see me taking the windows. Ah, well. Maybe a good conscious is a good thing to have, huh?

Of course, you could also rummage around for some odd pieces of glass or plexiglass that are just going to be thrown away, say, by a local hardware store or something and go snag it up and build your own frame around them.

I'm thinking of trying to build parts of a solar oven to use as a "cold frame". They generally have black matte painted sides and bottom and something like aluminum foil on the top portion of a double lid which is propped open to allow the sunlight to reflect heat into the box. The bottom lid is typically glass. The sunlight goes in and is absorbed by the black matte sides which keeps it warm inside. I think that, if black matte painted cardboard or tag board is placed between the plants, that should provide additional heat to keep the soil warm.

(I've made a solar oven before and they really do work!)

Ah, geez, I meant "conscience", not "conscious". Sorry.

Actually, I have a bunch of old windows. When I had mine replaced, I deliberately kept the old ones for my garden.

We've got a pair of old shower doors I could use to make a home made cold frame, the problem is I'm using someone else's garden under a scheme so I can't bring anyone with me to help put it together, I'm sure it won't be rocket science though.

I have pumpkin and some cauliflowers in the ground now too, they will be ready over the coming months. I'm still waiting for the spinach seedlings to come up, I wonder if it was dud packet.

I grow chilli's indoors and have a load of new varieties ordered to grow next year, I need a green house to keep them all in it's taking over my flat.

my tomatoes are still flowering and ripening and I have some spinach and lettuce to plant out, and I have some pumpkins and cauliflowers growing. The Pumpkins are tiny at the moment though and we only have a month before the frost starts