Tiny Farm Blog Organic micro-farming with two acres and some tools ~ a daily photo journal...

Well, it’s done! Four days of steady melting, from Saturday to late this afternoon, and the main snow coverage, which had been up to a foot (30cm) deep in parts of the field on Friday, is gone. The small pics are from Saturday, Sunday and Monday late afternoon. Huge puddles remain today, twice the usual of the last three years, and they’ll take more than the usual couple of days to seep away. There’s a big pile of snow this side of the greenhouse, shouldn’t have plowed that snowbank there, I’ll probably break it up with the Kubota compact tractor. And there’s the remains along the fence line, that shrinks at its own slow, protected pace. For most of the garden, drying out is underway. Cool!

Sage and thyme don’t look like much as they roll out from under the snow, but they’re good to see. Another chilly day, slightly above zero, but COLD. Still, the sunny days lately have been heating things up, and the snow is slowly receding. It’s pulled back from around the greenhouse, and it’s starting to retreat over the herb patch (that’s sage and thyme at the far end). The REAL melt-off starts tomorrow…!

Proper spring begins Saturday! I’m positive. Meanwhile, here’s today’s barren view from the bench, facing west, just outside the greenhouse. After a long summer’s day working in the field, this is the place to be to watch the sun go down… Coming soon!

Finally, a bit of a change in the weather: several degrees above freezing and steady on-and-off light rain. Although the air has been cold for the last couple of weeks, the sun has been doing its thing, heating up any patches of open ground and slowly melting the snow away from underneath. So, just a little extra help, and we see ground in no time. This drawn-out melt-off means water is puddling everywhere, freezing and thawing overnights, gradually seeping in. I think this is a good thing: our clayey (clay-loam) soil, with its high water-holding capacity, will be saturated to the max, and hold water longer, well into spring, a good break for the first seeds in. This is my theory… Y’know, there’s an upside to almost everything!

Inside, in the increasingly GREEN Milkhouse, this year’s artificial sun set-up is done. It’s about fitting in as much area-under-lights as possible, while making sure all of the trays are easily reachable, for watering, rotation, thinning. So, there are the four grow racks, and the lightbox (that’s leek, onions and parsley under there), with its second level (why waste a flat surface that comes with chains?!). For now, this extra space is the new spot for the rescued-and-passed-along decorative plants (the heather was too dried out and didn’t make it, the winterberry are doing fine, and the orchids seem OK…), but they’ll eventually be crowded out and moved somewhere else. The shelves are filling up fast… MEANWHILE, outside, it’s snowing and snowing, again. That’s a lot of snow. Around here, we’re definitely off to a later start this year than at least the last couple, but I’m still not particularly put off, not just yet. Although, it’s not supposed to warm up for another week, maybe two…

This is today’s peaceful but uninspiring view of the garden from the north-facing Milkhouse window…

“Spring begins” is what it says on my calendar. In the field, there’s a foot or two of snow everywhere that’s flat, with piled high snow banks and deep drifts wherever possible. The sun is getting higher and hotter by the day, but the air’s stayed cold to freezing. Today looked a lot different than this time last year, but not so far off from late March 2006. Nothing a couple of warm days and some rain won’t fix. Predictions are for a drawn out wind down to winter around here, but I’m expecting anything and imagining a warm and sunny early spring…starting any day now. As usual, we shall see!

Can’t speak for everyone, for me, heading into the field is the best walk to work I’ve known… The arugula transplants a couple of days ago started this season’s almost ritual morning garden tour. This is an often mildly adrenaline-fueled stroll at the start of every day, from mid-March through early June, and then, mid-September into November, to see what happened with the overnight temperature. Frost-watch, if you like, but actual visible frost you don’t see that often, it’s mostly checking the effect of really cold air on crops in different parts of the garden. Right now, there’s only the bit of arugula to check out (the unheated greenhouse gets as cold as outside once the sun is gone). We’ve kept a path clear to the east side door, where there’s less snow build-up, as the wind usually comes from the west (the greenhouse is laid out east-west, with doors at both ends). Today, all’s well!

As far as winter irrigation in the greenhouse goes, melting snow in big barrels is the next best thing to a really long hose, a well and an electric pump. Fill ‘em up, cover with clear plastic, wait a day (even on a dull, cloudy day, it gets up to 60°F in the hoophouse). Repeat a couple of times, and you have 50 gallons of rainwater in a barrel! The alternative is dragging 200′ of hose through deep snow from the barn to the greenhouse, then reeling it in and draining it, every couple of days. The weather has put the kibosh on the early-March, barely heated greenhouse plan, the happy prospect until March actually came around. The nights have been regularly plunging to 10°F (-12°C), so it’s really not worthwhile to heat things up by 25°F. No worries. Adjusting expectations and schedules more or less by the day is all part of the fun… It’s never boring!

Last seen planting garlic in November as we headed into winter, Lynn is BACK IN THE FIELD, getting a head start on spring. It was great to see her again and…continue! We headed out to the greenhouse and spent three hours or so, bagging the last of the grass mulch, pulling weeds, forking beds, chatting and basking in the sunshiny, 25°C (80°F) greenhouse weather! I also brought out a tray of arugula, couldn’t resist posing it in the snow… It felt excellent to get started out there. Fun!