I have a question related to winter veggie gardening.

I am gardening in Auburn, AL, border of zones 7b and 8a.I raise most of my

fall/winter veggies as transplants.On a couple of my growing beds, when the

summer veggies are essentially finished IN SEPTEMBER, I pull out the old

plants, wiggle a fork thru the soil to remove roots, add an inch of compost

and maybe other amendments, lay down the drip irrigation tubing, COVER THE

BED WITH A MULCH (newspaper/chopped leaves/grass clippings).Then I set up

a"tunnel" over the bed. The beds are 10-12 ft. long,3-4 ft. wide.I pound in

rebar (4 along each side) and bend over 4 8-10ft plastic PVC pipes. I cover

the tunnel thus made with Remay. I set out the transplants as they grow

large enough (pullng back the mulch in the space where the transplant is to

go, then replacing it immediately after transplanting ).

When the weather turns colder I cover the remay with 6 mil,plastic, and on

nights where it goes below freezing I cover that with blankets and possibly

another layer of plastic. In this way I am able to keep the veggies still

growing for a long time--there is only a short period of time during the

coldest days of winter when they are in "stasis". Under my set up, the temp

under the tunnels can stay up to 15F warmer than ambient temp during the

night. They've never gone below freezing,even when it was in the low teens

(which is extremely rare here).

My question concerns the mulch.Am I supposed to remove that Sept. mulch at

some point, and then reapply it after first frost/freeze? Somewhere I read

that as frosts approach one removes the mulch in order to warm the soil

more, and then to reapply it after first frost. But I don't know if this

applies to my particular situation where I have the bed protected as

described above.

Thanks for any help you may offer!

Peg

Dr. Peg Daniels

drpeg@charter.net