This site is an archive of ChiotsRun.com. For the latest information about Susy and her adventrures, visit the Cultivate Simple site.
Thank you for all your support over the years!

Officially Mainers

March 7th, 2015

My apologies for not blogging the lasts few days, I’ve been a bit under the weather. But I’m back and feeling much better now! A few weeks ago our basement wood supply ran out, since there are 3-5 feet of snow piled up against the basement doors and at least that much on the road we use to get to the basement, we decided to put the wood in our little porch by the front door. It’s very Maine, really, most folks seem to have a stack of wood on their front porch by the door.
firewood
It does make it rather convenient to load up the wood burner. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer that we’ll be needing to carry wood to the porch, we shall see. It was -5 last night, but it did warm up into the high 20’s during the day.

What’s the average temperature in your garden during the day and at night?

7 Comments to “Officially Mainers”
  1. kristin @ going country on March 7, 2015 at 6:49 am

    My husband just this fall built a big woodbox to put next to the door. If he fills that from the big woodpile in the shed before the workweek starts, it will last almost through the week. Convenient.

    Our average temperatures in the garden this February have been way below normal for here. Good thing the garden is buried under a nice two-layer of insulating snow.

    Reply to kristin @ going country's comment

    • Susy on March 7, 2015 at 10:08 am

      Way below normal here too, so glad for that 5-6 feet of snow protecting the plants!

      Reply to Susy's comment

  2. ann roberts on March 7, 2015 at 7:48 am

    Glad you are feeling better. And that we are not the only ones who keep a wood pile up on the porch. And we live in Tennessee. Our porch is a mess all winter and I do hate that part of it. This summer we will be building a much better protected wood shed and that will mean we don’t have to bring a month or two’s worth of wood up on the porch so that when we need to use it, it is dry enough.

    Normally, by now I would have onions, potatoes, brocolli, greens and such planted and covered with winter row covers. This year, nada. Just too cold for the row covers to protect quite well enough. But this week is supposed to be our turn around point and I have everything ready to go once it dries out just a bit more. Raised beds have saved our butts on the wet springs we often have. And also allows us to use all kinds of season extenders like row covers.

    Reply to ann roberts's comment

  3. Nebraska Dave on March 7, 2015 at 11:17 am

    Susy, Spring time seems to have arrived here in Nebraska with 50s and 60s temperatures for the next couple weeks …. so the weathermen say. The ground should be ready to at least scratch around in by that time. I can’t say that I really disliked this Winter because as Nebraska Winters go it was one of the better ones. It just kept teasing us with very mild 50 degree temperatures for a day or two then plunging back below zero. I’m sure we are very much behind in average moisture because we only had about 12 inches of snow for the whole Winter. That’s about a half of what we usually get. We can still get snow here even in April but it’s usually a wet sloppy snow that soaks into the ground and is gone within a day or two. The onions and cabbages are doing good under the grow lights and I have to really restrain myself not to start the warm weather crops yet. I’ll probably start hardening the onions and cabbages off this next week. There’s still eight weeks before the last frost date and last year we got a killing frost two weeks after that. I bought some marigold flower seed to plant this year. I’m planning on starting them in flats and putting them in flower beds around the gardens. I’ll be integrating flowers more in my gardens this year. It’s something new for me.

    Have a great Spring anticipation day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

  4. Colleen on March 7, 2015 at 2:46 pm

    Good you are getting back to your normal self!
    We have a back door wood pile, even though this winter has not been as cold as in previous years, its so nice to have a stack of fire wood just steps away.
    We are having the opposite weather temps than you. We have seen almost no winter weather this year. Our temps here at night are in the mid 30’s to mid 40’s and during the day mid 50s and next week may reach low 60’s daytime. This probably sounds wonderful to you, but no snow in the mountains can mean a long dry summer and extreme fire hazzard for us, and no cold weather could mean more bugs too. I thought March was
    supposed to come in like a lion and out like a lamb, not this year.
    Everything is at least two to three weeks ahead of schedule. I am not
    complaining of beautiful warm, sunny days, just curious how this early
    spring season will effect the next.
    The local tulip festival begins in April, they are hoping the tulips will wait
    another few weeks to bloom, some of mine are getting ready to burst
    open.
    Hope your wintery days are soon over.

    Reply to Colleen's comment

  5. Misti on March 9, 2015 at 11:07 am

    Do y’all not worry about termites with wood so close to the house like that?

    Reply to Misti's comment

    • Susy on March 9, 2015 at 2:24 pm

      No, termites aren’t an issue here in Maine. The wood wasn’t stacked here all year either, it’s just here for a week or so until we burn it.

      Reply to Susy's comment

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

Admin
Read previous post:
PermaNest Trays

I have a love/hate relationship with those black plastic seed starting trays. I've been gardening long enough that I've used...

Close