Nine Days Later

It has been nine days since our big December 6th snowfall. But it has only been three days since the temperature finally got above the freezing mark. While the snow is now mostly gone in town, we still have quite a bit left on our property. While it has completely disappeared from the trees and shrubs, the shaded areas on the ground are still covered with a few inches of snow.

I walked down to my big garden to fill up the bird feeder. As you can see, the garden is still mostly covered in white. I am reminded of yet another reason that this is perhaps not such an ideal place to garden! I am sure the Native Americans has some saying about not planting in the last place the snow resides!

I found a nice set of these tracks. I am pretty sure that they belong to a raccoon.

During this incredible cold spell, I have been very concerned about my garlic. I planted it late and it was only in the ground maybe ten days before the temperatures dropped. The last time that I checked on it, I had 10 "Chenook Red" bulbs up and none of the "Russian Red"  bulbs up. I know that some varieties of garlic are originally from the Ukraine and garlic as a whole is very, very cold hardy. But my garlic wasn't planted very deep and it didn't have a protective cover of mulch. 

So I was very please today when I pulled back the remay tunnel and saw a bunch of healthy green shoots! I counted 15 "Chesnook Red", so all of those bulbs are now up and growing. I also counted 4 "Russian Red" garlic shoots. So, even during this bitterly cold weather, the garlic has continued to grow. I still have 8 more "Russian Red" that have yet to come up but I am not longer worried. I bet when I check again around New Year's Day, I will have 100% of the crop accounted for. Garlic is tough stuff!