What did you do in the garden today?

[Sally PB]

I put my nose print on the window.

My dog did that a few minutes ago, when she heard a squirrel on the porch.

 

[Birdsonghill]

I start in December, planning next years gardens. I start ordering seeds , plants and supplies and continue right up till spring. I have to spread out the purchases and of course, I keep on finding things I want or need for my gardens. Looks like I need to work on my grow light. The ballast has gone bad and the bulbs are old and likely loosing lumens/efficiency. For seed starting I
have used two T5 54 Watt fixtures with 6- 6000 K bulbs. Also my very old seed starting heat matts controller has gone bad. Good thing I checked them yesterday! I was going to start some seeds this week, but will have to put it off a week or two , now. It is cold here now, and will stay that way a week or two . Then likely right back up to the fifties and sixties for day time highs. Next week maybe down to 5 degrees F. So much for global warming! Over my lifetime, temps that cold were not common at all here! Only a hand full of winters with weather below 10 or 15 degrees F and the coldest weather in all our local history was in 1989 and many more very cold winters since. The hottest days in my lifetime were in the 1970's. Maybe that is what scared Al Gore back then! Of course not enough to change his lifestyle! He just wants us poor people to change how we live.

 

[CNJ]

This makes no sense to me. I gave up on these Giant Black Winter Melon seeds from Baker's Creek a while ago. They must have been in the tray close to 2 months, the trays even dried out without care. However, after the heavy rain, the empty cells in the tray were filled with water and a seed sprouted this morning.

 

[WthrLady]

9.5 inches of snow here. Winds howling, drifts over 2.5 feet. Sunny now, which means it's going to get cold. Highs this weekend will be 0'F. Awesome.
heading out to put the coats on the noodle-necks

 

[Birdsonghill]

All our expectations sometimes get a detour dealing with the nature of life. It can be so surprisingly resilient , yet so fragile at the same time... It just started sleeting sideways here in the 30 to 40 mph wind gust. I was changing out the chicken water when it went from blowing drizzle to freezing stuff. A few smart hens are sitting in the house and hanging out in there mostly today. The Cochins and the Welsummers seem oblivious to cold, while the Black Minorcas/Whitings look cold and are hanging out in the house ,mostly. I am going to follow their example the rest of the day!

 

[jerryse]

Snow has stopped. We got off lucky. Nothing deep just wet sloppy and 3 to 4 inches. Melting helped. Cold coming this weekend.

 

[Sally PB]

Next week, they're forecasting highs in the teens, lows in the single digits for 4 days. We'll see what we get, but I'm sure hoping they're wrong. 5 degrees higher would help a lot...

 

[Birdsonghill]

Yes, Sally PB, just 5 degrees could help a lot here as well! It has hit below 10 degrees F here the last several years now. That is unheard of in my Lifetime. Yet somehow they want to classify us in a warmer grow zone now at the USDA and USWS. They both know it is a distortion of facts. My Celeste fig tree grew undamaged for fifteen years here getting fifteen feet high and ten feet in circumference easily and now has burnt to the ground level for the last four years in a row! That only happens with temps below ten degrees F here. In fact I have been growing tropical Hawaiian ginger on the south side of my house by the back porch for over twenty years successfully just leaving it mulched with it's own dead fronds over winter. I wonder how much longer it will make it in the colder winters we are experiencing here now? Gardenias have been tender perennials here my entire lifetime but now are almost impossible without very good green house like covers to survive now. Zone 7b for decades now zone 8a is a sick lie to the people here where I live. Yes, we are a boundry line area that various seasons make all the difference, but continuing defining patterns of actual climate change that define a trend is it is getting colder in the winters more often, without stooping to altering or distorting realities on the ground. I don't know what the weather is like at 40,000 ft ASL. maybe that is were they get their misleading information they use. AI may be the tool they are using to spread a programmers dreams about weather change. A weatherman on the ground here would tell a different story if he could be honest without jeopardizing his job! The story likely varies a bit across the nation as does the weather naturally vary from region to region and so may the changes. But here it is clearly a big distortion about warmer climate , so far anyway!

 

[WthrLady]

Threw coats on the boys and turned them out. High temp coming Monday -2F, windchill -40F.

 

[jawilliams509]

We got 4in of rain today. Our pond has been 2-3ft low the past 2 years due to summer drought. We are back to full capacity now!