Chilly Chores
Now that winter has set in and the pigs are gone the electric net fences need to come out. Last year we got an ice storm and I wasn’t able to remove them before the snow fell in mass quantities. As a result our poor fences took a little bit of a beating. Luckily, they’re very sturdy and I only ended up with a few bent posts.
I put it off one day because it was raining, the next day it was snowing. After waiting as long as I could I headed out into the snow to work. These fences are a huge pain to put up and take down. They are fantastic for keeping animals contained, but the process of taking them down, rolling them up, and storing them is really annoying. Luckily, the snow stopped and the sun started to peek out. By the time I was finished I could see a little bit of blue sky.
My fingers were super frosty by the time I finished but that’s quite fine with me. I don’t mind doing chores like this because I can be outside, even on cold days it’s quite a treat to be able to get outside!
Do you enjoy chores in less than perfect weather?
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Protective Pine
Now that the ground is starting to freeze it’s time for me to start putting pine boughs on all my plants that can use a little extra protection during the cold winters.
I have lots of small pine trees along the edges of my back field that need to be cut down so they don’t start taking over the open areas. They provide a nice supply of branches for all my plants. When I lived in Ohio I’d get a supply of pine boughs from our Christmas tree farm for free.
I was able to get all my small hydrangeas protected and my newly planted roses. Pine boughs have always provided just right amount of warmth for my plants that don’t appreciate the cold as much as others.
What do you use to protect your slightly more tender plants?
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Evening Chores
Sometimes we need some beauty in our day to make things better. Evening chores are cold this time of year. I often wish the birds would coop up earlier than they do so I don’t have to be outside at dusk when the wind is cold.
But then there are nights like this past Tuesday when the sunset made me linger outdoors long after my chores were finished.
What things are you finding that make life a little more bearable during the not so lovely seasons?
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Planting Less
Generally I grow way too much garlic, which isn’t a big deal as I give a lot of it away. This fall I decided to plant only about 1/3 or 1/4 of what I normally plant. I didn’t buy any seed garlic since I used stock that I grew myself.
All my garlic was planted a few weeks ago, six varieties were planted. Yesterday I gave them a nice layer of duck house litter to protect them during the cold winter and fertilize them next summer. Here’s hoping for a much smaller amount of garlic to weed and harvest next year.
Are you cutting back on amounts of anything you plant?
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Friday Favorite: Sharing
One thing I love about the gardening community is the sharing. Gardeners are a generous bunch, always willing to gift clippings, cuttings, and plants to others. I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of this kind of generosity many times in my short gardening career. About a month or two ago I mentioned on my Facebook page that I was thinning my strawberry plants. I offered plants to any locals that needed any. No locals had space, but I had a few friends from afar that wanted a few. When the weather cooled and the garden dried out, I dug 25 plants for each of them.
My strawberry plants will live in Maryland and Chicago. That’s the beauty of sharing plants, it’s a way for our gardens to ebb and flow beyond our property lines. I have plants that came from my grandmother’s home, they first went to my mom and then came to me. They were probably given to my grandmother by someone in her community. I have old fashioned comfrey, peonies, and lily of the valley from her garden.
My mom also has many plants in her garden that came from me. Hydrangeas I started from cuttings, seedlings of my Sweet Autumn Clematis, and one particular tulip that called ‘Mickey Mouse’ which was one of the first things I ever planted in my Ohio garden 12 years ago. The bulb was transfered with a start of a hosta. Since these tulips actually multiply, she’s going to give me a bulb or two for my garden here in Maine. And so it goes from me, to another garden, and then comes back around to my garden once again.
There are plants in my garden that came from neighbors in Ohio, I moved them to Maine with me. I know there are cuttings from plants in my garden in many gardens in Ohio and a few faraway states. Sharing plants is really the way of the gardener! In a way it can be a savings account of sorts. I have so many plants that I was unable to bring with me from my gardens in Ohio. Thankfully, my mom has many of them in her gardens since she received starts/cuttings from me. Next summer I plan to head back to finally start stocking my garden with some of my old favorites once again. The best part is that they are FREE. They do take more time than purchasing plants, but the story behind them more than makes up for the extra time it takes them to mature.
Do you have any plants in your garden you received from fellow gardeners? Have you ever gifted cuttings/plants/roots/bulbs?
