Our weather this year has been odd. We had a hard freeze in early October, even before we normally have a frost. I think we had two nights that it was down in the teens. Then it was back up in the 80’s for almost a month. Wednesday it was 82 and I think it was 80 yesterday. The weather yesterday was saying thunderstorms in the late afternoon. Those didn’t happen. They had originally said low 30’s last night. It was much warmer. I’d hate to try to predict the weather so I’m not going to complain or criticize but yesterday Vince was busy all day readying some of the front beds for the hard freezes that will eventually come.
I’m not seeing any real cold weather til the middle of January. There will be a night here and there with the low of 20, then 28 but for the most part, we just don’t have many hard freezes in our forecast. In fact, the first chance of snow I see is January 16. That’s sad! It could and probably will change.
I had wanted to rake up a bunch of leaves and fill the raised beds and some of the grow bags, then put straw on top and water it good to keep the leaves from all blowing off. I hadn’t gotten around to it and yesterday, with the chance of thunderstorms, I figured getting those beds packed with leaves and covered with straw would be great before the rain.
The leaves seem to accumulate under the solar panels so they were easy to rake up, fill the wheelbarrow, then push that round and dump in the beds. I had done two big beds and one small bed when Vince came to the back yard and said he was done . . did I need any help? Oh, yes and THANK YOU!
He finished filling two more of the bigger (4 x 8) raised beds with leaves, then filled three small (4 x 4) raised beds with leaves, then filled 5 of the 30 gallon grow bags with leaves. All those things were about 2/3 full of dirt. We topped them off with leaves. Then I covered them with straw and watered them. Wet straw should keep the leaves from all blowing away.
Brussels sprouts should be ok down to 20 for a night or two. Isn’t that plant beautiful? I had a few beets left so I pulled those out. As I was cutting the dead asparagus stalks, I found one nice asparagus spear. One spear! 🙂
Probably next week and about once a month til probably the end of January, I’ll had a bit of 46-0-0 (high nitrogen) to help those leaves break down without pulling all the nitrogen out of the soil. Last spring, I conditioned the straw bales with 46-0-0 and ended up with some of the richest looking composted straw I’ve ever had.
I’m ready for a garden break but I’ll also be ready to start planting way before it’s time to start planting.