Is Winter Really Over?

I actually got hot outside today while I was pruning the apple trees. It was 62 degrees and the snow is just about melted! Could winter be over? I don't think I can believe that since we have had record amounts of snow this year.

Here in Kentucky we didn't get near the snowfall that the east cost got, but we did get 27" in February and more that a foot of it all at once. It was hard to keep it off of the greenhouse.

My daughters favorite thing about having a greenhouse this winter was that when we were playing in the snow, we could go in there to warm up. It was also a great place to keep the sleds!

The only thing we could do in the garden was go sledding.

That picture was taken during one of our smaller snowfalls. Most of the time the garden beds have looked like this:

There was a lot more snow than we are used to. Even playing in it got us much more tired than usual.

It was our first winter as chicken owners. I learned that chickens do not like snow!

During the last snow, about eight inches blew into their pen and the girls refused to leave the coop. When they would jump down into the snow, they would squawk and flap around like they were being attacked! I actually had to shovel out the snow, put new wood chips down, and bait them out with lettuce from the greenhouse.

They still spent most of their time inside, but at least now they would come out to eat and drink. That's also about the time they start laying more eggs again. Now that it has been warmer, there are some days that every hen lays. Soon I will be able to let them back out in their grazing pen.

There will be a lot going on in the garden pretty soon too. I do have some early tomatoes and lettuce started and have much to share with you.

Most of the winter I have been writing pages for my new gardendesk.com site (as opposed to this blog). Now I plan to turn my attention back to blogging, so stay tuned here.

In the meantime, check out one of my new pages. The ones I have done are Seed Starting, Beneficial Insects, Composting, Garden Bargains and Tomatoes! I hope to write more as well - Spring can be very busy and exciting.

So what do you think? Is Winter almost over?

Greenhouse Growing Update

You may remember that we built a new greenhouse last Fall.

It came in handy this spring as we used it to raise a lot of seedlings. The main reason I wanted a greenhouse however was to have the ability to grow salad crops all winter long like Eliot Coleman teaches in his new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook.

It doesn't have to be heated, but it does need raised growing beds inside to grow the crops in. I wasn't able to finish the raised beds when I built the rest of it last year, so I got them ready this September.

The plan was to grow many perfect little seedlings inside under my giant light stand. That didn't work out because we had a huge flood in our basement right about the time I should have been starting the seeds. Instead I was busy tearing up wet carpet and drywall.

The light stand was still in that picture, but eventually it was dismantled. It will be put back together in the garage. (I'll post more about that and about the basement renovation later.)

Anyway, instead of starting seeds inside and planting seedlings in the greenhouse, I direct seeded in the greenhouse growing beds.

I planted lettuce, spinach, oriental greens, radishes, carrots and beets. We have been able to eat the radishes and some of the lettuce so far. This is what the growing beds look like now:

As you can see, direct sowing caused my lettuce bed to have bare spots and many of the plants are too close together. We tried to thin them but they are still bunched together. Much of it is still growing well. I still want to try to fill the gaps with new plants. I'm new at this, so I don't know if that will work.

It is still above freezing during the days here, but soon I will have to add a 2nd layer of plastic over the beds with small hoops or cold frames. I know I can keep the veggies from freezing. I just don't know how much the growth will slow as the day lengths are getting so much shorter.

No matter how much or how little success we have this Fall/Winter, I am having fun giving it a try. And the fresh lettuce is tasting real good!

I hope it lasts all winter!