The wind has settled down outside the Lair, the boys are sacked and snoring in their places, and I’m thinking about climbing the ladder and crashing for the night. It’s supposed to get cold again tonight, maybe below freezing, but it isn’t too bad right now. There was pretty good sun to warm up the interior, and I’ve got my coat off for the first time all day.
All winter I often commented and occasionally gloated about what a mild season it was. This while most of the continent suffered the little ice age predicted by Algore in such excruciatingly accurate detail*.
I’m paying for my hubris now, watching my carefully-planted garden doing nothing good while it’s damn near June and we get cold dry wind and nights below freezing. What few seedlings manage to sprout shrivel on the spot. Fun!
We’re just hanging out. Ian has been here for a couple of weeks working on his cave but now is off doing something destined to turn him into a renowned gun expert, and I hope on his next turn through he’ll bring promised care packages. I’m thoroughly sick of the cold wind – I’m huddling in flannel and canvas when this time last year we were well into t-shirts and sweat – but I’m dying to know what’s in those boxes. Christmas comes a few times a year when you can anticipate care packages.
The blog is doing well, though. It has quite unexpectedly become my interactive window on the world over the years. Thanks to Claire and Peter Grant for various links today. Funny – before I started it I debated whether starting a blog was a good thing for me to do. I’m a burnout who retreated into desert hermitage because it became clear the world and I had nothing to offer one another, and I got tired of beating my head against it. How strange that with this dumb little blog I finally made something that at least a few people actually wanted to read. I do appreciate you folks who come by so regularly. Appreciate the care packages, too. 🙂
Well. Whatever. It’s early yet, but I’m going to bed. Y’all have a nice night.
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*oops, of course I meant the global heat wave. Same thing. Carbon offsets would have fixed it, you ungrateful proles.
“What few seedlings manage to sprout shrivel on the spot.”
Might try this – works well for me…
Get some of those plastic milk type jugs – 1 or 1/2 gal. Cut the bottom off and then cut the top off enough that you’ve got a 4-5″ opening. I put 3-4 week old container raised sprouts in these once they go into the ground – just drop the container over the seedling and push it an inch or so into the ground and push some soil up around the outside. This gives you a little sheltered microenvironment for the plant to get a start. Plus you only have to put a little water into the container instead of watering the whole area. You can cut them off once the plant is established – but it might be a good idea to leave them on all season to discourage some critter girdling a plant. (Hell – I left mine on all winter! I tend to do Spring preps about a week before seedlings go into the ground!) You could start seed directly in the shelter instead of starts like I use – and it would protect the sprouts from wind damage and ease them into your world. Don’t use clear plastic bottles for this – tends to get too hot and there’s sometimes a magnifier effect on the occupants. Old style waxed milk cartons work well for this too.
I started doing this after one too many times of seeing seedlings twisted right off at the ground by our Spring winds.
The milk jugs work, but first you have to drink all that milk…. 🙂 Probably not an option for Joel.
I’m singing the same song, however. This winter was mild, only got really cold once, but it seems to have been going on forever. Started early, and staying late. We had nights in the 40s and some 70 degree days last week, but it’s back down to 26 degrees outside this morning. My tomatoes, peppers and squash plants are scheduled to go out June 01, but I’m beginning to wonder.
If you have wind you have to make something to hold the plastic milk jugs in place unless you bury them half way up in the dirt and even with that, they pull out and blow away. If Joel’s nearest town has a recycling bin/center there will be milk jugs there. Round or square terracotta pipe is heavy enough to stand up to wind and also stores heat, can often be found in the dump. Just put a piece over the plant. If a heavy freeze is expected you can cover the open top with a board, shingle, whatever. Piled up hay or straw bales around planting area will protect against wind too, but also attracts critters. And straw and hay are wonderful insulators. You can make a straw bale greenhouse by covering the bales around your planting area when needed with plastic, boards, whatever is on hand. If you have rock, little individual rock cairns provide heat and protect aganst wind, sounds silly but I’ve done it and it works. I put a large rock next to my squash plants and leave it there all the growing season for extra warmth to help the plants grow. A house full of veggie plants here waiting to go outside but the soil has to warm up first. Time to cover every planting bed with clear or black plastic – but that can roast all the beneficial critters living in the soil if it gets too warm. 23 degrees at night where I am, insane winds almost nonstop for about 6 weeks, winter clothes, some snow, no spring here either and I’m sick of it too. Bed is the best place to be, maybe until July.
Woke up this morning to 12 degrees and 3″ of snow. The snow was forecast so I piled a bunch of hay on the asparagus plants and am hoping for the best.
You can use bubblewrap too, either stake it down or tie it to opened out wire coat hangers making a mini hoop house.
Last freeze here was late February or early March – but I still had to wait til late April to be sure. That’s good though – all those fruit buds that were coming out early are pretty much out of freeze danger. Now we’ll see how much damage the dry winds will do!
I’ve got more than a dozen trees (saplings, I suppose…) ready to go out into holes that I dug last year and filled with good soil. I just can’t bring myself to let these hand raised kids out to get beaten to death. Sure like to get ’em in before the Summer heat hits though. A couple years ago when I put in a number of saplings this season I had a survival rate of 20% – that just kills me. At least they were store bought – seems to pain one less that if it’s a cutting or seedling that you lose after 3 years of just getting it to the point of going in the ground.
Supposed to hit 90′ here in the coming week – time to get ’em in the ground or procrastinate and do an early fall planting!