Snow and the Garden

Garden journal week 2

Last week I was putting the garden to bed as the cold hit Texoma. I relaxed when the snow came, though. The bitter cold and wind is more damaging to plants than a nice soft blanket of snow, which provides badly needed water to the soil when it thaws. The snow fell on Thursday, a total of between three and five inches, melted measured only a little more than a third of an inch. Not enough, but better than nothing.

The only thing Nandina is good for. I’m removing the last three bushes of it as soon as possible, but may as well enjoy the pretty berries even the birds won’t eat under the snow, right?

The floating row cover was rather pressed down on the small bed, I will have to figure out supports to keep it floating - like nice flexible tent poles, perhaps? I may have something like that kicking around in the shed. The peas even under cover got rather nipped by the chill, which is fine. I was expecting that, as it’s been so warm and they were growing and tender. As legumes, they are nitrogen fixers, and I have bulk packs of seeds, so I had anticipated using them as cover crops to enrich the soil while also learning where the boundaries are in my seasons. They aren’t dead, and the radishes planted are very much alive, so with a week of temps in the fifties coming, there’s still room for growth before the next cold snap.

Difficult to measure snowfall when it’s melting as it touches ground, only staying frozen atop vegetation. Later on I could have measured but it wouldn’t be accurate, hence my wide estimate.

This week, my local feed n’ seed got in potatoes and onion sets. I got Yukon Gold, one pack, of starter potatoes. We don’t eat a lot of potatoes, but I do like roasted potatoes, so I will plant some potatoes, just not a lot. We do eat a lot of onions, and garlic. I planted garlic last year, and this week I’ve put in the first set of sweet onions (planted about 24 row feet, wasn’t counting how many onions), and in the coming week I’ll be planting the red onions I’ve got. I also sowed a flat of onion seeds (Texas Grano) and one of shallots.

As the snow was starting to melt heavily on Saturday, I ran outside with packets of poppy seed and scattered them in and around my beds. Poppies need the cold and wet. I did this last year and had some results, so hopefully this year I’ll see the same! I don’t have any of the big breadseed poppies, these were field (Flanders) poppies, Icelandic poppies (my favorite from childhood in Alaska) and California poppies, which honestly are the best adapted to the climate here in Texas. Sunday, I planted my indulgence plants, putting in a pink Iris, a handful of Stargazer lily bulbs, and three small (but cheap!) Peonies. If I can get the Peonies established, they will outlive me. Certainly they have a place in any cottage garden.

Indoors, aside from the flats of onion and shallot, I’ve learned that my old spinach seeds are a total germination failure - not a surprise. This simply confirms that spinach seeds are only really viable for a couple of years. Some seeds (pansies and violas, all alliums) are very short-lived, needing to be sown within months as their germination rate drops precipitously. Others can last for hundreds of years under ideal (ie ultra-dry and/or ultra-cold) conditions of storage (links above if this fascinates you like it does me). Generally speaking, if your seeds are more than a couple of years old, a germination test prior to relying on a crop is a good idea. I’m working on using up the oldest seeds in my collection, hence starting the old spinach very early. I’ve already sown new seed for the crop I’m hoping to get - we both love spinach in salads. My bok choi is large enough to need both potting up from the plugs, and fertilizing. I’m looking forward to getting past this coming cold snap and getting that in the ground.

This week, while it’s warmish (high 50s) during the days, I need to get the new raised beds set up with drip irrigation so I can keep the winter garden watered. It simply isn’t going to rain sufficient for me to reliably harvest, so needs must. In the upcoming weeks I’ll start more cold crops, as my seed starting station is between 50-60, and then on heat mats I’ll begin with tomatoes and peppers. Oh, and eggplant, which I like even if my husband does not!

The veggie garden as it started to really stick.