By Andy Corbley -Jun 24, 2020
An Austrian farmer has experienced a trailblazing “eureka moment” on how to grow vegetables throughout the winter—and he is now teaching his technique to other European gardening communities as well.
According to a recent interview with Reasons to Be Cheerful, horticulturist Wolfgang Palme says he accidentally discovered his “winter farming” technique after a batch of his Asian lettuce was left undamaged by an early frost in the vegetable fields behind his house in Lower Austria.
The temperature had dropped to -11º Celsius (12º Fahrenheit), and although the crop is generally frost-resistant to temperatures of -3 or so, the lettuce—and Palme’s other vegetables—had survived the cold.
Palme, who is head of the Research Institute of Horticulture in Austria, was puzzled by the agricultural phenomenon. Upon doing some digging on why his vegetables may have survived the cold snap, the horticulturist found that the existing scientific literature on the frost-hardiness of Central European vegetables was just wrong… so he started to make it right.
The result is that Zinsenhof, the experimental farm where Palme conducts his research, now grows lettuce, spinach, scallions, red radishes, purslane, lacinato kale, turnips, carrots, celery, herbs, and pea sprouts throughout the winter.…
