Tag: Briar

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The melting report

To be followed by survival report!

Garlic under the snow from Thursday.
Front nook from Thursday. Dog for scale.
Front nook on Friday. Dog scale not cooperating.
Melting progress in front nook as of Friday night. Dog cooperated this time.
Front nook early afternoon Saturday.
Plant window and herb garden from Friday. The Norman official temperature made it to 32°F.
Plant window and herb bed as of early afternoon Saturday.
Backyard cactus planter, cilantro, and strawberries/saffron bed coverings on Friday.
Not related to melting, there were two crows eating suet mix on Friday.
Front yard raised beds beginning to be exposed again on early afternoon Saturday.
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Insulation for -12°F forecast overnight

That’s -24° Canadian.  Regular Winnipeg weather!

The Peruvian ground cherry I had been nursing along with towels and tubs and a hot water bottle every night succumbed to freezing last night (it was 3°F outside this morning around 7:30am). I have lots of babies in the plant window though.

Strawberries and oregano are under the tubs. There is some sedum along one wall and those poor little standing cypress along the back wall.
Foil and tissue under the regular foam cover, which is now covered by newspaper and cardboard, with a gallon jug of hot water sitting at the base.  We’ll change out for new water before bed.
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Insulating blanket of FUN

We woke up to a snowy world! Briar has seen snow before and enjoyed it but was hesitant at first this morning. She got over that soon enough and subsequently went insane with happy bouncing.

Briar examines the herb bed. Only seeds there except a single low growing oregano from Judy under the bucket. You can see the plant window in the background.
Briar passes outdoor stratification native wildflower seeds in little pots. Heck of a cold stratification this time!
The front yard raised beds with Salvia greggii in front.
One of our four rosemaries.
The garlic!
Snow whiskers! You know it’s cold when your breath freezes on your snoot!
Lots of little plants safely under the snow now. I feel a lot better about the impending -9°F etc coming up in the next few days now. Below: safety. Above: bouncies!!
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A soft, sheltering blanket begins

Hopefully we will get the additional forecast snow to help everything from the single digits forecast for Sunday and beyond!

The new onions especially need some protection. This is an experiment to see what they can handle since I should be able to get more if they die.
The backyard strawberry patch already has a lot of leaves, dead grass, saffron leaves (the green grass-like leaves), and the snow, so I think they’ll be fine. I’ll cover the front yard strawberries before it gets below 10 F.
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A new glaze of ice today

There are some very slippery invisible spots on the roads and sidewalks! Briar and I had to walk very cautiously.

“what did you do to the ground,” asks dog.
A little cabbage from last year.
Kohlrabi ice!
Iced garlic!
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Spring planting! It’s going to freeze next week!

Paula and I were going to plant things tomorrow, but it’s looking quite chilly. It’s just gorgeous out right now. So we spent a half an hour or so and got two kinds of onions (yellow granex and white granex) from sets in the beds, two kinds of potatoes in containers (experimenting with burlap sacks, potting soil bag, and cardboard boxes to make hilling them easier to get more potatoes), and seeds of French breakfast radish, green wave mustard, and Oregon sugar pod II pea. The peas we already have a few little vines of but I figured another round wouldn’t hurt to replace some since they blanch and freeze well if we get a lot.

White granex onions with some moss curled parsley from last year.
Yellow granex bulb onions with some cabbage and chard from last year.
Paula had the excellent idea to show the Yukon gold potato (burlap sacks/top) and Kennebec white potato (box and plastic bag) with their planters. We’re having a big freeze forecast for next week, so I only used half of the seed potatoes in case these die. (Also, I ran out of containers for now.) I am putting potatoes in containers to make them easier to hill dirt around, and also because crop rotation when all you plant is Solanaceae is very challenging.
Briar says it was good sleepy sunshine to supervise in. She was pleased.
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Loofah processing

Wes has been cleaning and bleaching the loofahs and has put them out to dry in the yard on a string.

I’m surprised Briar didn’t bark at the loofahs. Maybe she’s getting jaded to human shenanigans.
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Airflow to prevent damping off?

Wes rigged up a small fan with power supply to pull air through the plant window. Fingers crossed it works! There’s always taking the baby plants in and out each day for sunshine but I’d really rather not. Because I’m lazy.

The small fan. You can see the plexiglass gap there and a larger gap is at the top, which you can see in the next picture.
The cause of all this nonsense (Gram the cat) walks by the clamp I need to put back up to hold the plexiglass in place. Briar supervises.