Saturday, March 28, 2009

SNOW!

Gotta love Oklahoma weather...two weeks ago it was 84 degrees outside and beautiful. Today we're accumulating 3 inches of snow and counting. I spent a fair bit of time last night dragging out the frost blankets and a load of old sheets and towels to cover everything. I have tiny mesclun, spinach, radish, and lovage seedlings coming up, and the onions are setting in pretty well, too. Hope the weather doesn't derail too much. Hope the towels are sturdy enough and that the snow is insulative once the mercury starts to really drop (it's still above freezing, just snowing like mad!).

I don't have any pictures (b/c my husband took the camera with him to SXSW...I was jealous!) but last weekend I bought bird netting to stretch over some seedlings. The birds had done their best to clip and entirely pull up my kale and Swiss chard seedlings, and I'd meant to get bird netting last year but never got around to it...so it was definitely time. It was fairly easy to stretch out, too. I stuck some sticks in the ground and draped the netting over it. I think it will probably be somewhat of a pain to pull back up, though. It's already looking like it's tangled. But if I get some plants out of the deal, I'm better off than I was last year with just a bit of money (my netting was $7.99 at Lowe's) and time invested.

The squirrels are also starting to be a problem (well, not today!). I have containers of spinach and radishes which they've already dug up (do they think they put nuts there?). I have a bunch of surviving seedlings, but they messed up a few. I also suspect the squirrels of snapping off the fava beans at soil level. The irony here is that they probably just take a nibble and throw the stalk down, because they're always laying nearby, barely eaten. That's frustrating. One year I lost an entire corn crop that way, but I think that was raccoons. I'll have to figure out a better squirrel deterrent this year...I'll keep thinking.

In the meantime, hope all of your gardens are growing well and that this snow doesn't screw up too much!

4 comments:

Meryl said...

I don't know whether to be jealous or grateful. We were supposed to get "6-12 inches" of snow as part of that same system, but all we've had is semi-freezing drizzle and rain. I was kind of looking forward to the novelty of sledding in March, but (in the frenzy of basketball last night) I forgot to cover up my little seedlings, so it's probably good that we didn't get snow after all!

the sustainable backyard said...

We enjoyed our 18 inches of snow...with drifts up to 4-5 ft. Down the road they ended up with near 30"!
Warmer weather was here today...which means that spring storms are around the corner.

By the way, I have something for you over at my place. :)
~anajz~

Lewru said...

Thank you anajz! That's an encouragement to start posting more!

KateFitz said...

and oh yeah you got to go to your old friend Kate's wedding!