A full day of snow, probably about a foot in all. It started overnight, this pic is early afternoon, over 12 hours in. The winds were pretty high, guess it qualifies as a blizzard, but overall, not bad! The main concern is snow load on the greenhouse and the Milkhouse roof, but the wind has kept the snow moving, and there’s no big build-up so far. For storms in general, the worst non-disaster situation is the power going out (especially in the winter when there are seedlings in the electricity-heated Milkhouse). Outages aren’t a big problem here, but when it goes and it’s cold, things can get miserable. Here on the farm, this storm seems like no problem!
Weather
Winter watch: the greenhouse
We haven’t gotten a really heavy single dumping of snow so far, but it’s coming down steadily every couple of days and the weather’s staying cold, so there’s build-up. That means increased vigilance on the greenhouse front. The right combination of freezing, a little thawing, and more snow can stick heavy slabs of ice on the hoophouse plastic. It usually slides off, but the weight can build up quick, so I check. If things were to get really weighty, besides removing the ice, I’d have to support the whole thing on the inside by wedging wooden beams under the ridge. I doubt it’ll come to that. And there’s the build-up around the base, some sharp shards of fallen ice could have puncture potential, none so far. AND THEN, this is going into the fifth year for the plastic. The special 6mil hoophouse covering is UV-resistant and rated for four years, so round about now, it’s time to look out for signs of fatigue and disintegration. I haven’t seen this before. I imagine it’ll start tearing at exposed pressure points, the way regular plastic shreds or tears under slight pressure after a while in the sun (well, in the UV, sun or not). I should ask around. The west-facing side, with the door in the picture, is most exposed to really battering winds that occasionally sweep across the fields with not much of a windbreak nearby. (It took me a season to get over being amazed that the hoophouse was still standing after bad storms—I’d actually head out in the howling wind in the middle of the night to check!) So, the usual winter greenhouse watch is on, upped a little. (I should drag that bench inside…)
Checking on the greenhouse
Where am I going? What am I doing here? (Heading out to check the greenhouse. Got more snow today… :)
Official: the garden season really is over
OK, so this garden is really over for the season! Called due to extremely cold, snowy conditions that don’t seem likely to let up any time soon. I’d been counting on one more melt-off, but it’s only been freezing cold and more snow since the fall that covered it all eight days ago. And there’s no let-up in the 15-day forecast… So, I got caught out a bit. There are still carrots under there, that I might not see until spring, and I didn’t finish mulching the garlic (I think I was unconsciously pushing for a side-by-side test of mulch and no mulch, against prudent practice, and now I have one—it will be interesting…). The big experiment (and possibly, gamble) is with leaving the green manure cover crops—oats, rye—over winter, to be tilled in in spring. In the pic, you can see it’s smooth to the left of the main path, and rough on the right (at the very bottom is the composting windrow where the last of the leftovers go). The left side (plus eight sections across the north end, out of sight at the top) is fully prepped and ready to seed as soon as the ground dries out in spring (peas first!). To the right, I’ll have to wait until it’s dry enough to till with the Kubota compact tractor—determined by the weather, this could hold me back a couple of weeks. Or more. After that, again weather-dependent, there’s the minimum wait of a week or two after tilling for the cover crops to break down. But, with two-thirds of the field ready, however the weather goes, it’ll be fine!
Machines and snow
Looking out the side door of the Extended Milkhouse, this is what I see. The mighty tiny tractors don’t seem too formidable under a little snow. A good old fashioned blizzard and they’d be…gone! A few years of crazy short winters, and it’s easy to forget how different the seasons used to be around here. Not that long ago, 15-20 years, winter meant a whole new ground level, with permanent snow at least two or three feet deep settled in for the duration wherever it wasn’t plowed. Now, it’s practically a novelty. I can hardly believe I’m not exaggerating… Well, there may not be as much snow, but winter’s still coming, and I’m still going to have to soon finish cleaning out the drive shed to put the machines away…
Kale under…snow
Another installment in the snow-covered series: Winterbor kale! I’m so used to rollercoaster weather and the new winters that never really get started, it’s kind of a shock to have this much snow for three days in a row in November. And there’s no melt-off in sight, with the 15-day forecast predicting little sun and day temperatures hovering under 0°C (32°F). Picked a few pounds of the kale today, it’s still holding up, particularly the young new growth. It won’t last long if it stays frozen day and night. All this watching of cold-weather crops is bound to come in handy…sometime!
Rosemary under snow
The rosemary’s looking quite fresh and perky, buried tip deep in snow. There are many cultivars, some apparently able to overwinter in quite brutal cold. I have three types here, two without names (one a survivor of last winter’s rosemary greenhouse debacle), plus a new Barbecue cultivar. How hardy are they? Are they as happy as they look in the snow? Will I eventually take them in (as planned)? Or mulch them where they stand?