Woke up to a world of snow. Unlike the heavy dusting a few days ago, this was a serious snowfall, looked like 5-6″ (12.5-15 cm). This will stick around for a while. I didn’t finish mulching the garlic, and there are still carrots out there, but no worries, I’m SURE it’ll melt off in the next week or two, and meanwhile, snow is a great insulating mulch!
The goats have no problem with snow. It’s eating and looking out as usual!
Even a section of fence sorely in need of clean-up and repair looks kinda interesting under a little snow. We’ve had the lightest of powder trickling down for a few minutes here and there over the last couple of days, but overnight, it finally snowed enough to stick around for a bit. This was about 9 a.m. Within a couple of hours, the sun was out and the first snow was gone without a trace…
As a friendly reminder that the weather hasn’t gone entirely haywire, the nights have been cold lately, freezing or below, and some days begin with a reassuring blanket of frost on the field. Here, the Swiss chard (it’s trusty Fordhook Giant) is moments before melt-off in the morning sun. The chard can take a freezing and keep on tasting great. In fact, so can the rest of what’s out there: there’s still lots of spinach, kale, cauliflower, collards, plus beets and carrots safely in the ground. People are dropping by daily to get a last bit of whatever there is, so it all works out!
A vibrant slash of orange and yellow—the half-row of calendula seemed to be fairly unfazed by the recent blast of sub-zero cold, where the zinnias didn’t do so well. Another bit of first-hand frost experience to file away. Elsewhere in the flower test plot, the very few centaurea and asters seem to be kinda OK, still holding color. Otherwise, it’s all terminal shades of brown.
Yes, the weather’s crazy. According to the min/max thermometer outside the greenhouse, last night’s low was a chilly 18°F (-8°C), cold enough to kill off all but the hardiest. Finally, and only six weeks or so late—the endless autumn harvest is interesting, great for personal use veggies, but otherwise, it mainly throws off the fall clean-up schedule (I haven’t changed zones, have I?!). Here, the eggplant is clearly toasted, while the peppers, which had been under fairly light row cover (I pulled it back today to harvest some), came through in relatively fine shape . And the oats, well, it’s a monster, lush and green and if not exactly growing anymore, it seems to be getting thicker. It’s fascinating the way cold works in the field. Wind, cloud cover, mini-windbreaks, slight elevation, all kinds of factors add up differently in spots only a few feet apart to determine life or death by cold. Anyhow, can’t wait around forever. I’m soon going to roll up the row cover and till it all down!
With last night’s forecast calling for -3°C, I finally figured a little floating row cover frost protection might be a good idea. In fact, though, with the cloudy, windy, wet conditions right through to Saturday evening, a solid freeze didn’t seem all that likely. And that turned out to be the case. The min/max thermometer outside the greenhouse registered a low of -5°C, but only a few crops suffered minor damage. Even the basil, which is really tender, did well: the top layer of leaves took one for the team, but the rest were fine. Here, some sweet pepper plants sit under cover, but the forecast for the next week is…quite warm. When exactly does the season end?
Jo sports a borrowed rain jacket with snap-on drawstring hood, in striking work yellow—perfect protection for a rainy harvest day. Today was probably the wettest harvest Friday of the year, and it wasn’t bad. A couple of heavy downpours kept us indoors for quite a while (snapping farm fashion shots out of the Milkhouse door…), otherwise, a light drizzle for part of the afternoon hardly slowed us down. For the occasional wet work, Conall favors a full rainsuit, jacket and pants, while I so far make do with a hooded rain jacket—I’ll pop inside and wait out the heavier stuff. Lynn arrived after the major downpours. Today’s four-person crew made good time despite the weather. For the record: mesclun, spicy salad greens (arugula, mizuna, tatsoi, red mustard), collards, kale, spinach, radish, carrots, beets, green onion, summer squash, bok choi, tomato and potato (harvested yesterday), and garlic and onions from storage!!