It's winter again!

 So cold, so snowy.  Well, it is February and this is what we should expect.  We'd been lulled into a spring mindset with a week of above average temperatures and now we're back to reality.

I've sown my peppers; NuMex Lemon Spice jalapeño, habanero, and Hungarian Hot Wax.  In another tray I've sown impatiens and eryngium (sea holly).  From my second sowing of my own collected seeds, the only ones that germinated were a couple more Gerber daisies, and a few more prairie coneflowers.  BUT...I'm up to five Virgin's Bower seedlings, which is amazing.

 I'm also dealing with an infestation of white flies, which is incredibly frustrating.  I'm hitting them daily with soapy water, but it's not working to full effect.  I think next year I won't bring any herbs back into the house for the winter.  It's either fungus gnats or white flies or improper conditions, so time to give up on those.

I did take advantage of the snow cover to clean up some pine boughs from the mule track and burn them.  I hate burning brush more than anything, but I'll admit it feels good to know that chore is done and I won't need to do a major cleanup when spring gets here.

I finished my needle felted rabbit, too.  My specialty needles and whisker material finally arrived from the UK, just in time. 

For my first project, I'm very happy with how everything turned out.  I'm now working on an Easter garland. 

The birds are really coming into the feeders en masse lately.  The cardinals are getting really bold, showing during daylight hours as well as dusk and dawn. 

And one of the male goldfinch has decided he's had enough of his drab winter garb and put his spring finery on for the ladies to admire.

I know them feels, little guy.  I wish spring would hurry up and get here, too.

bring the heat

On Sunday, the 5th of February, I did an experimental re-plant - new batch of seeds, same plants.  This time I used a heat mat under them.  Lo and behold, five days later I have two Gerber Daisies and one prairie coneflower seedlings peeking through the soil.  I'm hoping the other seeds germinate soon.  

In the Virgin's Bower pot, one seedling has emerged among the tiny mushrooms.

And the lettuce, OG coneflowers, and Gerber Daisy continue to do well.

 

One more month and I should be able to start my annuals from seed, I'm so excited! 

Addendum to my last post - I discovered that during the cold snap I had inadvertently shut off one of the mini-split duct heads in the main part of the house, which explains why it was so cold inside and why the unit was struggling to keep up.  Live and learn!

brrrrrrrrr!

 

Cold enough for ya?

Mount Washington broke a New England record overnight with a windchill reading of -105*F.  

My mini-split is struggling to keep up.  I set the temperature to 66*F and it's 57*F right now, 6:12 am.  Supposedly by this time tomorrow, we'll finally have a "real feel" of above zero.  I'm waiting for daylight to go check the mules, who must be in agony.  I did my best to prepare; Flea has a blanket and boots on, I have two heat lamps running in the interior stalls, I nailed a quilt across the run out opening, and I banked hay like crazy along the walls.  My frost-free hydrant was frozen solid at 6 pm last night, so who knows when that will thaw.  Thankfully I have the big slop sink downstairs where I can fill 6 gallon jugs and haul them out to the barn.  This is definitely the coldest, most dangerous weather I've ever experienced.  

As for my seeds, still nothing from the original plantings other than the prairie coneflower and Gerber daisy, despite adding a heat mat to the mix.  All four continue to do well.  The Virgin's Bower seeds haven't sprouted, but I have a lovely crop of tiny mushrooms growing in the soil.  Time to give up on these seeds, I suppose.  I picked up some Ziva paperwhites that were on clearance and have been forcing them on the windowsill.  They're very pretty but HOLY STANK.  They smell like cat poo.  I had also grabbed a mixed bag of tulips, daffodils, and allium that I planted into pots and stuck in a corner of the basement.  While rifling through the bargain bulbs I came across one lonely, dried out iris tuber; "Ghost Train".  I'm a sucker for an iris and it's near-black, so of course I took a chance.  Amazingly, after being potted and put under a grow light it's beginning to send up green shoots.  I think I lost my near-black iris "Raven's Girl", so this is a nice replacement.

I also started some cutting lettuce in clamshell containers, as I usually do in late winter.  They're coming along nicely.  Most of my herbs are failing spectacularly.  I don't know why I try every year to winter them over, it's a wasted effort.  I guess when it comes to gardening, hope springs eternal.

Random Updates

20 days in and only four prairie coneflower seeds germinated, but they are doing well.  3 of the 4 now have their first set of true leaves, and one is about a week behind the rest. Only one of the Gerber Daisy seeds has germinated, and none of the Rudbeckia or Blue Mist Spirea.  

 

 

 

I suspect if I had a heat mat it might make a difference; for now I've lifted the seed tray using books to get it as close to the grow lamps as possible.  I'm going to dig out another seed tray and repeat the plantings on Feb. 1st, investing in a heat mat for this round, and see if I get better germination.  I'm happy enough with three healthy prairie coneflowers; I paid $15 for the three plants I collected the seeds from that I planted in my new garden last fall, so I've doubled my investment in less than a year...if I can get these seedlings to survive until June, when they can be planted out.

 

In early autumn I had spied a Virgin's Bower vine in seed near a telephone pole, and I stopped to grab some of those seeds a few weeks ago.  I'll try germinating them, and if they take they'll be planted in my woodland garden.  There's another giant project on my plate - I really need to get in there and start cleaning up that area.

 

I've been working on my needle felting project a little at a time.  It no longer looks like some kind of Island of Dr. Moreau cast-off and is more bunny-ish.  

 I was at a bit of a loss as to how to proceed at this point.  My intention was to make a realistic looking rabbit, but it became more and more toy rabbit looking.  I decided to go with the more whimsical toy look and gave him exaggerated back feet.  Then I couldn't figure out what to do with his front feet.  I had planned to do a standing rabbit, and in that case they hold their front paws to their chest, hanging down in front.  No matter how I positioned him, he just didn't look right.  In the end I needle felted a carrot for him to clutch.

I'm waiting for some new specialty needles to arrive from the UK.  I'm hoping to make him look a bit more finished before I declare him officially completed.  He'll be part of the Easter display I'm making for my mother, along with the felted eggs I've done.  I have to say, it's an addictive hobby and I'm really enjoying it.

Meet the new year, same as the old year.

 Three days in and that's how it feels.  How is it that on December 31st one is so filled with optimism and hope, and just days later the realization hits that nothing has changed and all hope is lost.  OK, maybe not lost.  Derailed?  At least we were treated to a stunning sunrise to end the year.

To lift the grey veil of winter depression, I wandered out to my little hillside garden (that's what I'm going to call the newly fenced vegetable/perennial holding bed area) to see what was happening.  To my surprise, I found my hellebore proudly showing off a few swollen flower buds.

There were traces of green in many of the beds; English daisy, veronica, yarrow, foxglove...all had decided to respond to the abundant daylight and warm temperatures.  Things look to be headed back to more seasonable temperatures, so I hope these plants aren't too bothered by that.  I can thank my mother for drilling into my head that hardy perennials are your best bet, and be sure they're appropriate for your USDA plant hardiness zone.  Despite being upgraded to Zone 5 (thanks, climate change) she'll still insist we're Zone 4 and any plant you have that isn't hardy for that zone, well, you're taking a chance.

After packing away the Christmas decorations and folding up the fake tree, I decided to bring up the seed starting shelves.  I couldn't bear to have them sit there empty, so I sowed a small tray of Gerber Daisies, Blue Mist Spirea, Rudbeckia, and Prairie Coneflower.  All of these were seeds I had collected, so I just want to know if they'll germinate.  I won't start anything else.  I need to keep repeating that to myself, otherwise I'll have six foot tall tomato plants on my dining room table come April.  😏

I've also started a new hobby, needle felting.  So far I've stabbed every one of my fingers and have some questionable looking Easter eggs to show for my efforts.  We won't talk about the Easter bunny that looks like a heavily pregnant monkey-chicken hybrid. I'll get better at it, once my fingers heal.

 Our good start came crashing down around us yesterday.  Winter Storm Elliot came bustling through our area, and while most of the country was left buried in snow in its wake, we warmed up to 50*F and had the strangest winter storm I can remember.  Hurricane force wind gusts, inches of rain, severe thunderstorm alerts, and temperatures plunging into the teens to single digits overnight.  We've lost most of our snow pack and everything froze.  

 

Friday morning, December 23rd

Saturday morning, December 24th

Once again, thousands are without power.  The winds from this storm came from the southwest, when typically they come from the northeast.  Trees toppled, limbs fell, and low areas flooded.  What a mess.  Thankfully for us the bitter cold is nowhere near as bad as it is in the Midwest right now.  And the long range forecast?  Well, there's another oddity.

I can only hope that things will settle into a more normal pattern in the latter part of winter. 

Now that's what I call a good start.

 

 Our first good storm of the 2022-23 winter, and it was a doozie.  It snowed from around 7 a.m. on Friday morning until about noon on Saturday.  At 6 a.m. Saturday morning I measured 14 1/2 inches of heavy, wet snow.  We probably had another two inches fall after that.  Thousands lost power and cleanup was insane.  The ground wasn't quite frozen, so many dirt and gravel driveways are a complete mess after being plowed.  Thankfully we had power back after six hours, but in the meantime I re-learned how to start my generator and actually used it to power the mini-split and a few other items.  The day before the storm I remembered that I had started to replace the chute deflector cable on my snowblower back in the spring but never completed the job, so there's another skill I quickly mastered.  Happy to say the old snowblower is still working perfectly!  

Most of the snow arrived overnight, so here's what I woke up to. 

So festive!

...oh my.

Well then.

My poor little birch trees!

 Once it stopped snowing the sun came out and temperatures rose.  Snow came off the trees and roofs in earnest, and everything melted a little.   This morning it's all froze up and would have made for a great base if the next storm brings the initial 6 to 10 inches of snow they were predicting, unfortunately now it looks like our pre-Christmas storm will be mostly rain, thanks to temperatures rising to 50F.  

While that might not be the best outlook for skiing or other winter activities, it will make heeling in my new baby trees easier.  

I sent in a $20 donation to The Arbor Day Foundation and in return received these little gems.  5 Norway Spruce, a White Flowering Dogwood, an Eastern Redbud, 3 crab apples, and two hydrangea.  Hard to believe there are twelve trees in that bag.  Even harder to believe frozen ground and over a foot of snow are "optimal planting conditions" for my zone.😒  If the weather does get that warm, I'm thinking I might heel them in against the foundation of the house, as that would be the only diggable soil.  We'll see.

I'll end this post with some wild and not-so-wild critters out in the weather.  Like the porcupine who has been living in the old horse barn.  He appeared at dusk near the bird feeders and waddled his way through the snow to mom's big barn.

And the goldfinch who decided to wear a snowflake as a hat.

The mules were out and about - the snow would have been almost up to Flea's belly, but I did snowblow parts of their paddock.

I've recently begun feeding a pair of resident crows.  I throw soaked cat kibbles, shelled peanuts, and mealworms out for them.  They didn't show up yesterday, but I was happy to see some bluebirds were taking advantage of the feast; I think they were after the mealworms.

And all was well on the farm. 😊

not quite what I intended

 So the paddock footing I just put down wasn't exactly what I'd hoped.  The stuff I used in my previous paddock must have been 3/8 crushed pea stone, not round - it definitely packed better than this mix. 

What happened was right after the material was spread we had a downpour that lasted over a day, followed by a ridiculous drop in temperatures.  The stone dust part of the mix became saturated and froze solid, and a small amount of the round pea stone is loose at the surface.  I could feel the stones through my boots, so I can't even imagine how uncomfortable it is for the mules.  I'm very frustrated and have no way to fix this, so let it be a cautionary tale.  The only upside is that once the sun warms it for a few hours, about an inch of the top layer thaws so it's not as torturous to walk on.

Also, this happened.

I took these just after daybreak, because it's a few hours later and now we're getting rain; this will probably all wash away by noon.  I hope this isn't a harbinger of how this winter will play out.

the late autumn rush

 Although it's been uncharacteristically mild of late, you can feel the winter in your bones.  It'll be here any moment now.  Time to clean up, lock up, and hunker down.  

I have a list of pre-snow chores about a mile long, but I'm fairly certain they won't all get scratched off.  I've pulled all my annual plants, brought the herbs inside, planted any late season perennials still in their pots, put away flower pots, pulled garden hoses...all the usual garden tasks.  My neighbor gifted me a couple loads of mulched leaves, so I fashioned a quick leaf compost area from leftover fence panels and lined it with chicken wire.  Mom added a couple loads of her mulched leaves, as well.  This will probably rot down to 1/3 the size, but leaf mold  is an excellent compost and mulch, so I'm very excited about it.  It's conveniently located on the forest side of the garden, and you can see my not so excellent compost bin at the top of the hill behind it.

I'm doing an experiment that I'm praying the mice don't ruin for me.  On Gardeners' World, Monty Don is always setting up potted spring flowers in the autumn, so all he has to do is set the pots out in the sun once the time is right, and up pop tulips, crocus, daffodil, etc.  I filled the bottom of a pair of large plastic flower pots (we can't all afford terracotta!) with potting soil mixed with sand for drainage, then put some Rip Van Winkle daffodil bulbs in the center of each.  A layer of soil, then some woodland tulips, another layer of soil and some hyacinth, a layer of soil and some crocus.  I put the pots in the old barn, and tried to cover them as best I could so the mice won't dig in there and eat the bulbs.  We'll see how it turns out.

I had Corey the Tractor Guy out one last time.  He did some last minute things like filling in the old stone well that the tree guys uncovered in the woods (dangerous!), leveling the landing the tree guys created (future manure storage area!), setting my garden ring, and the big project - new footing in the mule paddock.

First, the ring...I love it.  

I know it doesn't look like much right now, but once everything is green again and this thing is covered with squash or cucumber or pumpkin vines, it's going to look awesome.

Now...the paddock.  

So when I had this paddock made, I had asked for a stone dust/pea stone mix as a footing.  What I got was pure stone dust.  This is fine for a limited use paddock, or a riding ring, but for a 24/7, 365 living space, not the greatest.  My biggest complaint is that it doesn't drain very well.  It packs so tightly that sure, it makes a solid footing, but water tends to sit on top and in the winter, it freezes into giant ice slicks.  Not fun.  This also causes the massive amounts of urine the mules produce to sit on top of the material, bake in the sun, and stink to high heaven.  You can see how well packed it becomes:

I will say the stone dust definitely prevented any grass from growing through it, though.  That was perfect.  For the first few years it was  fairly firm underfoot, but lately it's been churning in with the soil underneath in thin spots, creating muddy areas.  Anyone who has livestock will tell you how much of a pain frozen mud ruts are for both caretaker and the creatures who have to walk on them.  Also when I body clip the little guy twice per year, the stone dust packed in his coat from the rolling he does dulls my clipper blades in minutes.  What's that?  Give him a bath first? lololololololololololololol...be my guest.  I know better than to poke that bear.

This time around, I made sure to specifically order a 50/50 mix of stone dust and pea stone.  Here's what it looks like in a pile:

And here's what it looks like in the paddock:

It's a little deep in spots, but it was no easy feat getting it in the paddock and spread with the tractor.  Fargo nearly shot over the fence a couple times, and both mules got a pretty good workout running around like chickens with their heads cut off.  It was easier than me shoveling it into wheelbarrows and spreading it by hand, though!  Fifteen yards would have taken me a week or more to spread alone. We're supposed to get a good rain tonight, so I'm hoping it helps tamp it down and settle it in.  This is the stuff I should have used for my gravel patio...live and learn.  I feel better knowing the biggest chores have been ticked off my list.  

Behind the house my new turtlehead plant in the bog garden, the dogwood tree, and most of the surviving crimson clover have all been eaten to nothing by the deer.  My first project next spring is definitely going to be that cat fence! For now I plan to settle in for a long winter and try to come up with some kind of design for my gardens. 

Perimeter work

 I've taken down the fence around the vegetable garden and started putting up an all-encompassing fence around it, the shade garden, and the perennial holding beds.  I'm hoping to deter future woodchucks from ravaging my plants.  So far I've been able to get the front fence up, using the sections of wrought iron fence, old deck railing, and a set of vintage gates I picked up last summer.

Since that section of ground is nothing but stones and ledge, I decided to use grade stakes as posts.  Also, I couldn't afford the iron stakes that would match the iron fence...yankee ingenuity strikes again.  We'll see how long the grade stakes last.

I had some sections of old picket fence that I wanted to use up the sides of the gardens, but they don't follow the slope very well.  I've decided to go with three foot tall chicken wire fence and metal posts for the remainder of the garden.  I'll have to run it behind the front fence to keep the vermin out, so when it's done it should look pretty gnarly...which is fine by me.

I've also put out Jack and Tawanda for Halloween, along with some witches I was recently gifted.  I had wanted Jack & T to be in the cauldron, getting cooked by the coven, but no matter how I arranged them it looked absolutely obscene.  I settled for this display:

I'm calling it, "Witches?!?!?  In OUR town?!?!? *gasp!*"

Losing pea stone

I managed to lose some pea stone on the path connecting the upper area to the lower area.  The slope is a little steep, so I made some hand rails out of sumac saplings I had on hand.  The railings are offset on each side, but from a distance they create an illusion of one railing.  I'm planning to plant coneflowers and beebalm under them.

Oh, that little blaze of color at the end?  Well, I noticed this lonely Tiger Eye sumac at a local plant sale, and couldn't just leave it there. 😁