Saturday, February 14, 2009

Melting!

Hey, This winter we had alot of snow (for RI anyway). This past week it got up to 50 for a couple days and melted most of the snow! Sweet. I can see the ground out in the yard, and all of Snoopy's sh*t that he left in the snow all winter is scattered around like little brown landmines. Guess I know what I'm cleaning up later today. Great.

Here is the cold frame I made last weekend:
Here are the carrots I tried to save through the winter.. Ihave no idea if they will recover but eh.. its worth a shot:
This weekend I'm going to start some seeds out there. Snap peas, chard, spinach, and mache. Some claim its never too early to start greens but eh... I don't believe them. In case you haven't looked at a calendar, we are now 12 weeks before the typical last frost (Mid-May). Time to get seedlings started inside for stuff that can't be direct seeded. Start with cold hardy things this week, and then in about 6 weeks start tomatoes, squash etc indoors. Don't forget to pick up some seed potatoes for planting early/mid april!!! This year we're just planting red potatoes I think.

Here is Kaptain Krunch about to eat one-day old venison tenderloins cooked in butter with home grown kennebec potatoes cooked over a wood fire. This is living.




Cya! -40.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Real Winter

Heh. I have to say, after a few years of weak winters, this is a real winter. Frozen ponds, snow that stays around for a couple weeks, icy everywhere, no bike riding, going through a mountain of firewood and a tanker truck of fuel oil, I'm very much looking forward to spring. Along those lines, I've been keeping a look out for the return of robins. Yeah, sounds g-hey, but I'm one of those people that look for signs. The past few years I've kept track. Usually, its the first or second week of february. Last year, they never flew south... stuck around all winter. I saw two robins on Monday, Feb 2nd. Whooo Hoo!



I can't wait to be able to ride my bike to and from work. Mostly what stops me is icy roads or darkness. Right now we have both icy dirt roads on the way to work, and darkness after. I think maybe by the end of Feb, I'll be riding again.

In other news, with this snow i've noticed when we get snow, it melts very quickly next to the south facing foundation wall. I took a pitchfork and checked the dirt in a garden bed. Holy Crap! It's thawed right next to the foundation, about 2" wide . A light bulb went off above my head... I took some storm windows, leaned them up against the foundation, and sealed up the ends with a snowbank. In a week, all the dirt in the bed was thawed down a foot or more... pretty surprising. So this weekend I built a simple wooden frame, some plywood ends, dug out some tired dirt and added some good soil, kick@ss compost and worm casting mix. I'm thinking once the soil is 50F constant, it's time to plant some mache, spinach, chard, and peas. I might be able to start some of those inside and move them out, but it seems 'direct seeded' plants are much hardier than transplants.

-40.