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

[Backpost for Dec-14-2009] Snow’s here—it’s definitely overwinter storage time! Winter storage is a little different every year, as needs, facilities, and plans change. This time around, a fair bit of gear is in the 20′x32′ (~6×10 m) hoophouse, with its full sun exposure and fairly extreme temperature spread (from double-digit subzero at night, to 80-100°F/25-38°C on a sunny day!). Sooo, you don’t want to be storing just anything in there. Anything that’s damaged by freezing isn’t a good idea. And plastics that aren’t UV-resistant will break down, fading and weakening (really, most plastics not meant for constant outdoor use should probably be kept out of the sun whenever possible). Here, it’s mostly wood—extra rough cut cedar from a project a couple of years back, tomato stakes, tables, farmers’ market display trays—which is OK, and I’ll get the plastic items under cover. Except for checking the snow load on the hoophouse after big storms, that’s all she wrote until early spring. The outdoor part of veggie farming in our growing zone will now take a bit of a snooze…

A familiar season-marking sight for anyone in snow territory, this is the start of what may turn out to be a growing, winter-long snow bank. The mini-blizzards of the last couple of days laid down at least 7-10 cm (3-4″). Road clearing mixes up dirty snow in hard-packed windrows, and driveway clearing creates mini-mountain piles. Will it stay or will it go? The indoor part of tiny farming veggies in a cold climate begins…

Around 8 am, just getting light, and it’s the second snow that’s sticking around for a while. Here, I’m standing in a weedy area right beside the barn, looking south-west over the south-facing slope, with the chickenhouse just out of sight to the right. (That’s a so-far unidentified piece of antique iron farm gear with wheels, sticking up on the left.)

Winter isn’t coming in as hard and early as it has in the last couple of years, the temperature is supposed to stay above zero for the next few days at least. We shall see!

Every year, the feeling on first seeing veggie production land disappearing under snow I find kinda cool and interesting. It’s not really sad or anything like that, but there’s definitely an “it’s really over now”, wiped-out thought-sensation-emotion thing going on. When you’re growing stuff, the snow and the cold really send a message. This is obvious, but still…worth noting. :)

Here it is, in the dim, chilly, gray 7:30 am light: the first snow to stick this fall. Familiar—we really do have such a short growing season, time flies—and of course not welcome, because there’s still fieldwork to do. And I’ll take warmth and greenery any day. But this first round will be gone by mid-morning, and if the 15-day forecast holds anywhere near mildly accurate, we won’t be in for snow that stays for at least another couple of weeks. The last two years in this region, winter came kinda early, freezing weather and long-term snow arrived by the end of November. But the couple of seasons before that, far as I remember, we were actually WATCHING for winter well into January. So, who knows?!

It snowed fairly steadily yesterday and today, transforming everything with that pretty but kinda unwanted winter wonderland effect. Looks like around 4-6″ (10-15cm) so far… (I don’t keep track of snowfall the way I do rain!) This isn’t forecast to last, it should warm up and be all gone in 3-4 days, and then the temperature is supposed to jump. Drying out time…

That first day of being able to actually work the field is always so different each year, especially the last 4-5 crazy weather years. Two years ago, peas went in the first week of April. Last year, it went from too-wet-to-work, to needing irrigation, in one mid-April week. Who knows how it’ll go this time around.

With the new garden, extra steps like disking, rototilling, and waiting a bit for the grass to break down some more, not to mention, prepping the ground for and putting up the greenhouse,  make timing particularly critical. The farmers’ market officially starts in less than FOUR WEEKS. CSA shares begin second or third week of June. I can feel the adrenaline bubbling up just writing about it: timing and the WEATHER! :)

From delicious warm weather to snow, to mini-melt-off, to more cold and snow… The weather is yo-yo-ing, changing every couple of days. Seems unusual, but what isn’t with Our Weather of the Last Few Years? At this point, the only way I could keep track of all the weird weather configurations is with a detailed daily weather journal, constantly updating the stats. Somehow, that doesn’t particularly appeal to me! In the pic, the overnight snow makes a pretty topping for the useful wood scraps, ends of 2×6’s, conveniently piled just outside the new seedling room door…