We had some snow – did you notice?
I was paying close attention because gardeners do that, and whammo!– down came a bunch of snow in the middle of the week. “Suddenly we’re in Fargo,” my garden beds declared. “Where’s Frances?”
There was enough snow behind the garden gate that I could not push it open. “Don’t worry about us,” the garden beds announced. “We’ve got this blanket of snow to keep the worries away until Arkansas returns, but where’s Frances?”
So I went back inside and sorted my seed basket confident that the garden beds were cold though covered in snow, and that’s a good thing.
I’m glad you asked.
Snow in the garden insulates the soil and thereby moderates soil temperatures. Mulch also is a good insulator and with snow on top you get a bonus. Sufficient cover protects roots, earthworms and things, from seriously cold temperatures, plus moisture in the soil might not freeze and therefore remain available for whoever needs it down there.
But that’s not all. Snow collects nitrogen on its descent which it deposits slowly into the soil, and you know when nitrogen and oxygen are mixed just right, we get weird voices, so if the choir in your garden sounds squeaky, it’s the nitrogen, and that’s a good thing.
Snow has been referred to as “poor man’s fertilizer” because it adds nitrogen and sulfur to the soil for free, plus, when there’s snow all over everything, I don’t have to make an excuse to myself for not performing heavy garden labor. Plus, snow covers all the chores left unattended for a while. It’s a win-win.
In the winter of 1971-1972, Mt. Rainier got 1122 inches of snowfall, a world record for 16 years. In the 1906-1907 winter, Tamarack, in Calaveras County, Calif., had a snowpack of 884 inches which is almost 74 feet! Somebody measured. Woody Point, Newfoundland, averages 21 feet annually, but on December 4, 1913, 63 inches of snow fell on Georgetown, Colo., just that day.
Snowfall average in Arkansas maxes out around 16 inches per year. Seems like lately we’ve had more around here. Our area got inches of snow May 3, 2013 – not famous but notable.
A snowflake is created when moisture freezes around a particle of dust or pollen way high in the air, and it takes an hour or so for it to fall to earth. No hurry. People with scientific calculators can explain why snowflakes always have six sides, and folks with microscopes who look at snowflakes a lot claim so far they have not yet seen two identical snowflakes. I’ll take their word for it rather than comparing their database of snowflake photos against everybody else’s. Plus, I was told that in the second grade, so I was already up to speed.
An anthropologist studied the dialects of Native Americans in the northern parts of Alaska and Canada and found 50 different words describing snow. Aqilokoq, for example, describes gently falling snow, aput means snow on the ground, whereas piegnartoq is snow easy to sled over. Sort of like in baseball pitchers throw sliders but also sinkers, and either way it’s a pitch.
And on that subject, if snow falls as a pellet, it is called graupel or sleet which is not the same a hail.
Since you are relieved of heavy garden labor for the moment, focus on getting ahead of yourself by doing things such as planting seeds in pots far too early. Likely candidates would be cabbage, kale, arugula, or chard. Asian brassicas too. Find a warm place inside somewhere, nurture your little sprouts for six weeks and transplant them with protection too early just to see if you can help them make it because that’s gardeners you do. We’re scientists.
February will bring us more snow and possibly rude, drastic weather conditions, but the active underground economy in your garden never stops, just slows down and maybe goes deeper. Snow falls to protect the soil with cold, messy beauty.