Baby, it's cold outside

After so many warm weather autumns, this one has taken us by surprise.  It has been colder than normal and we even have some snow that fell three days ago and is still sticking to the grass.

I had sprayed my shrubs with rabbit repellent for the winter but hadn't put up the fencing around them or wrapped those in burlap that needed winter protection.  I bought three bales of straw and only had one down on the parsnips and carrots to try and keep the ground from freezing.  The potted shrubs just barely got dug in to the garden before the ground got to hard to get a shovel in.  I peeled apart the last two frozen straw bales to finish heeling the shrubs in.  The fence and burlap was a quick job before the snow fell.

There is a slight warm up coming in the next week in which I am hoping to dig up some of the parsnips and all of the carrots.  I also need to cut down my two story high sweet autumn clematis for the winter.  There just aren't enough hours in the day or energy in my system!

Back to the cold

We spent a week in Florida (again) this past week.  It was unseasonably cool according to the desk clerk, but we weren't complaining. 60's beat our weather by a long shot this past week.  I was just checking the stats while we were gone to see what kind of snow fall we experienced during our absence.  There is still lots of it on the ground even though very little fell in our absence.  Last year  people were mowing the grass as we rolled into town.

Last year's unseasonably warm spring has made us feel somehow entitled to more of it this year.  We paid for the early spring last year with a "seasonable frost" that took out the early buds on the apple trees.  This cost us any abundance of apples for cider and other products that come from the excess crop not sold for straight fresh eating.  I had a good crop of most everything since I was able to irrigate what the drought deprived us of naturally.  Most of this was due to an early start of things in the ground.

I look out on my beds today with large, gentle flakes landing on mostly snow-covered, frozen ground of my raised beds.  I don't think the onions will be getting in this week like I hoped.  I will have to get very creative with my pea planting if they will be seeing soil on Good Friday.  Of this, I am not optimistic.  The only seeding I will be accomplishing this week will be under artificial light.  I want to get the baby cabbages started for early set.  There is lettuce to get set as seedlings before hitting the beds.  Even the south side of the house has some amount of snow cover.  It might be a good time to construct some cold frames with my double walled Lexan and warm the soil up with some solar heating.

I will think on this as I sip the last of the margaritas by the space heater and come up with "Plan B".

Cold Weather Coming...preparations part 1

Things to get done in preparation for a possible frost night:

• Cover lettuce and other crops I am still holding that I don't want "frosted"

• Cut back the plants that I am bringing in for winter so they fit through the door (and then some)

• Put cold sensitive plants in the garage for the night

• Harvest the rest of the peppers

• Water the root crops that are staying in the ground a little longer

• Take some pictures of the garden as it goes into a new color season (the sugar maples and flowering kale are really kicking in this week)

• Cover my lone tomato plant that I am going to see how long I can keep going next to the house

• Start using only rain barrel water so they are empty by the time it freezes

allysum, flowering kale, sedum and sugar maple

Heliotrope and lemon verbena
I wish you could smell this planter right now