Archives 2008

There is a phenomenon long observed in the north country called the “January Thaw”.

I don’t really know and can not remember if it thaws every January but at least when warm weather interrupts our winter we have something to call it. I don’t think we have to completely thaw, that is all show and ice melting, but the weather must be above freezing for at least a few days.

For example, the weather goes from ten below zero to 20 F. we sarcastically remark, “well that’s our January thaw”, but in reality this example does not count. To be an official January thaw the temperatures would need to stay above freezing for 2 or 3 days.

In this years thaw everything is melted. The temperature has stayed above 32 degrees for something like a week or so, even at night. Phyllis came up from the greenhouse the other day and said she could hear the water sinking into the ground. With the early snow cover and now this warm weather the ground is not frozen yet and is more or less like a sponge.

This is good because we can easily open the cellar and greenhouse door and we are not using a lot of oil. But it is not so good in that the perennials are going up and down in temperature. It is better if they stay frozen for the winter and that is why we keep them in the shade this time of year. That way sun does not melt the show covering the containers.

It now looks like our temperatures will slowly drift back down to the 20’s and 30’s and that is fine with us. We can remember years when the temperature stayed below zero F. for weeks at a time, dipping to 30 and 40 below so anything in the 20’s and above is balmy by comparison.

This time of year our mail box is chock full of seed catalog. Every year we get more and more so we thought it would be fun to highlight some of the more interesting, useful and unusual ones, so here is our seed catalog review.

The other day we received a catalog that we have not seen before. It is R.H. Shumway’s Illustrated Garden Guide. The first thing we noticed was the size. Not the thickness, this catalog is 10 inches wide and 13 1/2 inches tall. For you metric types that’s about 14 furlongs by half a hogs head.

The catalog is profusely illustrated in black and white, much like the wall street journal and there is a photo of the old boy him self with the caption, ” The American Pioneer Seedsman”.

The “Guide” is more of a catalog with the usual items and a few odd balls like cranberry plants. But just because it calls its self a guide doesn’t make it so. In order for a catalog to be a guide there should be some growing tips and information. Although this catalog has a feel like a farmers almanac, there is non of the sage advice we were hoping for.

We went to the website and were more disappointed. It is so bad we will not put a link here but if you try you should be able to figure it out. Any site that has images that claim, “no image” needs work.
I think they have a good idea but poor execution. We would give this catalog a 2 on a scale from 1 to 10.

This year has been funny in that we have had some snow cover since November. Funny in that for the past few years the winter has been relatively dry. When we do not get much snow fall the ground tends to free faster than when there is cover.

And in spite of the fact that we have had snow, the temperatures have been above 0 degrees Fahrenheit. This combination of warm relatively warm temperatures and snow cover means the ground has not total frozen.

As a matter of fact Phyllis was able to pull the paver blocks up from in-front of the greenhouse door with no problem. We have 4 – 18″ square blocks in front of the door to the greenhouse so that a mud hole does not form in wet weather. Normally they would be frozen to the earth and we would need to pry them up with a crowbar. As a matter of fact in past winters the ground would heave by now, from being frozen, to the point where the pavers make it impossible to fully open the door.

One problem is the stone around the green houses is not frozen so when we run the snow-blower around the outside it tends to pick up some of the gravel. It really is no problem for the snow blower but if a lot is removed we will have to replenish it.

This year is not shaping up to be much of a zone 4 climate, more like zone 6 or 7 !
The warmer weather and cover may allow us to have a good wintering for the perennial garden plants. We put them up in gallon pots and winter them over in 2 beds which measure 5′ by 20′ each. The beds are made from 2″ by 12″ larch and we fill them up with next years perennial plants.

The beds are situated so they stay in the shade until late spring so the sun does not have a chance to melt the covering snow. These plants usually come through stronger and are ready for the garden in late spring until fall.

In the spring the sun get up to a point to where the beds are in full sun from the end of March until October which is perfect for wintering. We only hope the voles stay away.