Month: February 2019

Tons of snow, and a tiny bit of green.

Jen Powell3 Comments

I have been pretty busy this winter, but haven’t had much to post about. We had a somewhat mild winter for most of November and December, but then got pummeled by the Polar Vortex and a bunch of snow the last few months. Here are some updates of our farm:

late december snow
Here was the snow in late December. You can see how the garden was covered. This was pretty mild for us and temperatures were not bad. They went down right in time for the new year.
snow feb
Here it is today. (same view). We have about 2-3 feet on the ground at the moment. We’ve gotten most of this the last few weeks.
snow now
Here you can see our snowbank next to the chicken coop. The chickens are not enjoying this – they mostly stay inside right now. The ducks mostly stay inside too.
digging snow fort
Here is my son, in the trench he dug between the snowbank and the chicken coop. He’s building a fort back there.
d snow fort
Here he is inside the snowfort.
seed starting
I started some Seeds! Onions (Yellow Spanish on the left and some Red onions on the right), and Black Gogi berries in the middle. I’ll start other stuff way later, but the onions needed to be started now. The Gogi berries will be bushes so I figured they could start now too.
onions
A closer view of the onion seeds. These sprouted within 2 days of planting. I was very surprised at their speed.
onions 3
Another view of the onions. I decided to start with seeds this year instead of onion sets because I could pick exact varieties instead of just “red” or “yellow” – these are a Yellow Sweet Spanish and a Weatherfield Red. I got my seeds from Baker Creek.
onions 2
More onions. So exciting! There are tons! I love onions and we ran out of our grown supply at the end of December – I’d like to have enough to get us through the whole winter next year.
gogi berries
Here my Gogi berries are sprouting – just came out of the soil today, I planted them last Saturday (so just over a week). I have 10 or so that I planted so I expect to see more come up soon.

We have a lot going on here, and I’m dreaming of spring; Doing a lot of planning for this year’s garden, and planning to order some new hens in the next few months. Right now we’re just trying to keep ahead of all this snow.