Where have all the snowmen gone?
It’s December after all, so it’s fair and honest if we get some snow. My part of the world got four-to-five inches, and I’ve heard others nearby say six. Driving got messy. Looked spectacular.
We got more snow that day than most of Colorado. Parts of Japan near the same parallel as Eureka Springs, however, got seven feet of snow, and snowdrifts in Siberia were twice that high. Roads crews near Scranton, Penn., used more than 600 tons of rock salt on nearby roads because of the snow conditions.
I’m just putting my walk to the garden in five inches of snow on an Ozark hillside into perspective. Never have liked making the first steps across fresh snow. I like seeing it untouched, but I can’t hover yet so I respectfully stepped lightly toward the garden and retraced those steps on my way back.
In the garden, snow was evenly layered over everything. Magical. I pushed snow back to open the garden gate, and, right where I planted them but under the white blanket-like vegetable popsicles were kale, onions, lettuce, parsley, arugula, winter radishes, spinach and yod fah.
Temperatures never reached the teens or below, and the snow melted within two or three days, so the report I got from the vegetables was, “Thanks for the frosty icicle experience, especially the nice, slow watering afterward, but how about a leafy mulch for holidays?”
Gardeners on the north shore of Lake Balkhash prepare for winter by planting the same kinds of crops as gardeners along the north shore of Lake Erie, just different varieties. All of us the world over already brought in winter squashes, but still growing might be local cabbages and tough leafy things, plus radishes and onions. Norway has winter peas long into cold weather, and endive, spinach, mache and leafy brassicas endure the cooler weather in northern Germany. All of these are similar to what we grow around here.
My vegetables – even dainty-looking dill and cilantro – survived the five-inch snow. Winter weeds even seem refreshed. For protection on smaller seedlings during frosty nights, I use plastic juice containers cut in half. I call them hats. A young spinach plant wearing a hat will prosper until it outgrows the space. Mulch and thorough watering also makes a big difference.
For the previous three winters, I sheltered oak leaf lettuces through the cold with plastic tepees or plastic covers, and each summer I let one go to seed. A sprout from last summer matured and dropped hundreds of seeds which dutifully sprouted resulting in a mass of tall skinny lettuces not socially distanced but still tender and succulent. To protect the lineage during its fourth winter, I parked a table over them and they are okay so far. Maybe they deserve better protection.
Several years ago, I was determined to see if sweet peppers would survive the winter with some protection. I gathered enough PVC elbows, wooden stakes for framing and plastic sheeting to assemble a ramshackle on-the-spot greenhouse, and it worked. Some peppers lived through the next two winters, one of which was a hybrid lilac bell pepper that by the third summer reverted toward its green forbear.
I have also created hoop house tunnels over entire beds which worked but were cumbersome at watering time or when a strong wind blew. Maybe it’s time to try them again.
An obvious strategy for those with a greenhouse is to let the garden beds rest for the winter and grow vegetables in the warmer, protected space. In my greenhouse, I have leafy things thriving in several large pots plus beets growing in beer boxes. Nevertheless, I insist on laboring over several beds in the garden in spite of the cold just like my doppelgangers in Kazahkstan and Denmark.
Gardening is art, pure science, therapy and a habit hard to break.