January 23rd Storm

Our first real winter dump.  Trudging through the drifts this morning to get to the chicken shed was hard work.

Feeding the Chickens

In the picture above the snow doesn’t really look that deep, but it’s up to my knees in places.

The wind is coming in from the south east and making weird drifts at our back door.

On an inside note: my early tray of onion, tomato, lettuce and pepper seeds are up…well most of them.  Pepper seeds are so fickle and sporatic.  The ones I collected from last years peppers sprouted in about 3 days.  The ones from the seed packet are still not germinated.  I’m not sure if it’s those seeds that are slow, or if the collected ones were just fast.  I don’t remember pepper seeds germinating that quickly before.

More January

This is a very warm January for Saskatchewan and although we still have a snow cover I’m hoping for more snow to fall so my perennials stay covered until late spring.  After a few days of above 0 temps we are now getting -1 or -3 during the day, which for gardeners is better.  If I wasn’t a gardener I’d be just as happy as anyone to enjoy the mild weather.  It is a good thing though for the cattle, cats and chickens in our yard.  They are much happier not having to huddle against the cold.  The cats are lounging in the sun on the front step, and the chickens are brave enough to set out on the bales which we put around the coop for them to get up on, and out of the snow. 

Yesterday I planted a few tomato seeds (sub arctic), and a six pack of red peppers intended for our 4 season room.  I also put in 2 cucumbers and some lettuce.  These are in a single heated tray and, once sprouted, will stay under the grow light in the basement until large enough to put into large containers out in our sunny room…perhaps late February or early March.  A few of the onions I planted are sprouting already.

I saw a white/grey coyote yesterday in the front garden.  I could see from the tracks he had circled the chicken coop, but he didn’t make any attempts to dig or get in.

January, 2010

After many weeks of very cold, winter temperatures we are getting a bit of a warm spell, so today the chickens get to go outside and soak up some rays.  I got my seeds ordered this week which hopefully will come expedited so I can get the onions started in January.  I also ordered some delphinium seeds as well since those in my garden seem to have become diseased, and where I have them planted they don’t seem to self seed where I want them… just everywhere beyond that spot.  It’s time to order some new ones anyway as then tend to default to softer shades from their own seed after a few years.  The seeds I ordered apparently bloom the 1st year but they do need to be frozen for a period and then started early.

The sunny window in our new 3 season room…. soon to be 4 season once we get the floor insulated, looks like it’s going to be perfect for getting some early greens started.  With the recent freezing temperatures in both Florida and California, and with more trucking companies going out of business due to shortage of work and fuel prices, I’m thinking it’s a good idea to get a few things going now so we might have lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, tomato and peppers ready early in the season.  I’ve decided to plant a few of each to grow in the 4 season room.  It’s an experiment, but is the reason we decided on the very large, south facing window.

So today, I’m off to the shed to find a few trays and seedling soil and to get some of last year’s onion seed started. (Onions are a short lived seed so germination won’t be great).  I’m wishing I had ordered extra ‘cool breeze’ cucumber seed last year as it’s not available this year due to seed shortage.  It would be the perfect option for growing indoors since it’s suitable for greenhousing.  I’m hoping I can find at least 3 seeds someplace hidding in the corner of a seed packet…. doubtful however… I think I did that already.