The freeze a couple weeks ago kept temperatures below freezing most of the week (lows in the teens). There wasn’t much snow, but something whitish that resembled snow that took forever to melt… freezing rain or sleet, I guess. It took out the celery and chard, and the artichoke plants took a beating. Even the kale got “burned,” but most of the leaves were still harvestable. The Chard and artichokes will resume growing with new leaves. The alliums (leeks and garlic) were totally fine. Surprisingly, the lettuce also seems to have survived fine. The ice took down the deer netting fence in spots. I tacked it back up when the freeze was over.
An endless summer. Today’s high was about 65°. More mushrooms are still coming up. I picked a few more small peppers and some kale.
Heather made some grape juice from Merrie’s Concord grapes.
Heather planted potatoes on March 18.
This season has been cold and wet, and we think our about two weeks behind normal. I’m trying to pay more attention to the environment than the calendar to know when to plant things. Our plum tree is finally blossoming, and dandelions are starting to bloom. The pear tree and the young fruit trees are still at bud stage.
Heather planted peas yesterday. She also transplanted kale from the cold frame to the open air garden.
The onions are taking root and starting to grow shoots.
We’ve been slowly harvesting “perpetual spinach” (a type of chard) from one of the cold frames. I’ve also enjoyed harvesting the abundant dandelion greens.
We have a second cold frame now. This one has an auto-opening top based on the temperature.
The weather was cold and snowy in the second half of February.
We have a new “garden tool:” the drone. Now we can get super accurate shots of the garden throughout the season. This one is from June 16:
We had a super rainy winter and spring, somewhere around double the average. But all of a sudden the rain stopped on June 20, the day before summer.
I pulled out the soaker hoses today. They were chewed to bits by rodents. I ordered new ones.
Today was pruning day. This is the first year that I haven’t done major renovations on the plum tree. The pear tree also got a light pruning as well as the young fruit trees. The grapes got the usual treatment.
After a record-breaking hot and dry summer, this winter has been really wet. We had a week or so below freezing between Christmas and New Year, so hopefully that was sufficient for the plants that need it. Otherwise, temperatures have been pretty normal. January has been pretty mild.
Heather moved the herbs from row 1 of the garden to the south side of the house.
Good news from the beehive: so far, the bees have survived the winter! On warm sunny days such as today, they venture out of the hive.
I finally got around to addressing the coolant leak in the tractor last week. I decided to try the easy option first and pour a bottle of Bar’s head gasket sealant into the radiator. I’ve cycled the tractor through warm-up/cool down a few times, and the amount of steam coming out of the exhaust seems to be diminishing. I also changed out the milky engine oil. If this fix doesn’t work, I’ll have to take the engine apart and install a new head gasket.
We’re finally getting a little rain today after two very dry weeks.
Some of the duck eggs are starting to crack, and we are hearing peeping sounds. Any day now…
