Whilst Head Gardener on a big estate open to the public, one of my duties was to look after the Victorian kitchen garden. The wonderful and most knowledgeable Lady owner of the estate always wanted sea kale (Crambe maritima), for the kitchen! To this end in Victorian times large terracotta pots were made so as to force the sea kale up in spring and to blanch or whiten the stems which are eaten.
These huge and frost resistant pots were found by me to be ideal to protect many ornamental plants from the damaging snow & ice.
Some plants especially on this estate died due to too much cold/rain and not ice. So if a lot of rain was forecast the said plants were covered for as long as the rain lasted.
Luckily we had hundreds of these terracotta pots. They were designed to cover plants and not to be used as a normal pot. They also had a small hole in the top, to allow some air circulation. A Victorian wonder indeed.
Regards.
Neil.
p.s. Remarkably these pots are still made look here.
http://www.littlethorpepotteri...
