Expecting snow any day here. It has been pretty chilly here for over a week and I have tended not to go out to do any garden cleanup. It has been raining quite a bit and trying to do anything in the garden is difficult because the heavy wet clay soil sticks to my footwear and it is like dragging 40 or more pounds around on each ankle. Time to go into hibernation even though there is still lots to do outside. Now, it is time to stay inside and dream of next year's garden seasoning.

Temp. here will be closer to averag a few days from now so I will be working on covering the roses and do any peony digging I plan to do.

It snowed for three days straight, now it's just overcast. Supposed to begin snowing again at 2pm until 4pm, then it will clear up (supposedly) and stay that way (partly cloudy) for the rest of the week.

Johannian, is the snow accumulating or melting shortly after it falls? It was snowing here a few minutes ago when I popped my head out the door but it is large wet flakes. It is going to minus 5 overnight and I certainly am not looking forward to a blanket of white when I get up in the A.M. I still have lots of stuff to do outside but do not care for cold and wet snowy conditions.

No snow here yet, but I agree with Tigerpaws... time to go into hibernation, but too much to do outside yet! I did get a few things done today - pulled out the 12 brassicas that I grew for fall harvest, 4 each of cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage; I planted a little too late but did get 4 smallish heads of broccoli. The cabbage in particular were seriously attacked by "winter cutworms," after I had meticulously covered everything with tulle to keep the cabbage butterflies off. I don't know if those cutworms were already in the soil there? I've never encountered them before, and had garlic growing in that patch before planting the brassicas. Maybe they just followed the slugs and crawled under the edges of the tulle? Anyway, I also cleaned out a small shady flower garden in back of the house; kind of hated to pull out the nicotiana plants because they were huge and still looked pretty good, but it needed to be done! And then I brought in some catnip and put it into the dehydrator to crumble up and use for the cats during the winter.

Just 142 days until spring... hold that thought!

Weedwhacker, just reading you are preparing catnip for your cats. Do you have any honeysuckle trees on your property? I do and what cats really like is to have a section of honeysuckle branch to play with. It is something about the HS that they just love. They roll around on the floor hugging the branch, licking and chewing on it. Guess it has same effect as catnip.

Wow - I'd never heard that about honeysuckle! I don't have any now but it sounds like a good enough reason to plant some - thanks for that info .

tigerpaws said: Johannian, is the snow accumulating or melting shortly after it falls? It was snowing here a few minutes ago when I popped my head out the door but it is large wet flakes. It is going to minus 5 overnight and I certainly am not looking forward to a blanket of white when I get up in the A.M. I still have lots of stuff to do outside but do not care for cold and wet snowy conditions.

No, it was always under 25F throughout those three days of snow (Friday it was down to 9F at one point and we had a high of 17F), so the snow stayed. Only today did it melt when the sun peaked through just a bit.

Much more pleasant today. Currently 31F, with a high of 46F. Completely sunny.

46 degrees right now with a 21 mph wind which has the spruce tree braches bouncing off of the side of the side, quite loudly.

Fifties and Sixties forecast for the most of next week.
The old, 35 years at least, picnic table needs new two by fours on top as the old fir boards that came from reworking the house up North have rotted on the end.

These are old rough cut two by fours or eight quarter by sixteen quarter as lumber yards refer to rough cut boards.
SO, I found a lumber yard over by Mora, Minn. (50 mile from here) that had affordable rough cut.
I used to go to Youngblood's in the Twin Cities but they shut down some years back.

Well I drove there and the dude and I looked through the left over rough cut boards that were two by eight as they had no rought cut two by fours that were 8 feet long.
Found an old Oak board, slightly warped but it is going on a picnic table so no concern.
Went to pay for it but he said it was not worth the paper work so I got it for free.
Layed it diagonally, resting on the front right and left rear windows, and drove home with it.
When I am done wasting time here, will cut it to fit the table.

I used to know without looking how many boards were originals but now I , think, only three are still original boards.
I know I replaced one seat, all the legs, and the cross boards thats the top boards, and legs are attached to.
That leaves one seat, the long under the top center board that used to have a holed piece of wood to stabalize an umbrella post and technically holds the cross board on each end together as a unit , and the center top two by eight that are original.
Of the original 11 boards three are still there.
It used to have three two by eights on top but they were Pine and two of them rotted a long time ago, so I replaced two with Fir two by fours from the house when it was remodeled a twenty years ago or so.

Big HEAVY old thing that we move to the drive way in the summer from the patio in the spring every year, and back in the Fall.
The Boss decided she wanted a metal table and chairs back about the turn of the Century on the Patio (which go in the shed every Fall) , so I have been the force that decided the old Picnic Table deserved to kept around.

In the rare occurences we have a summer feed, some poor unfortunate and I, get to carry it the seventy feet around to the other side of the house and back.
It reminds me of the first years Sharon and I were together so it stays till I decide it is time to go.

Workin on the Picnic Table and found I measured a recent board I had put on, that was a full 2 inches rough cut, well, I have been adding to that table for decades with willy-nilly boards and got careless.
MOST -- of the boards, still on the table, I used in the recent past were 1 & 1/2 inch rough cut, SO, I will go back to the gent I got the 2 by 10 from and get some 1 & 1/2 boards as he had a lot of them.
At that, several of the top boards were already rotting out to the point in will not be long they are not solid, so , I will put four new 1 & 1/2 by 5 rough cut inches or 6/4 by 20/4 boards on top.
I may just get two 6/4 by 40/4 boards as that would be easier.

It is 43 degrees with a 4 mph wind and 85 percent humidity at 10:38 P.M.
It is forecast for 59 tomorrow and 64 on Thursday.
No low temp. teens until January 1st.

I am doing my usual search for not normal seed sellers and uncommon seeds.

I found this place: https://store.experimentalfarm... -- while checking out Josef Lofthouse site at -- https://lofthouse.com/sweet-co....

Interesting site; have any of you ever bought seed from this place?

Neither one but appreciate the links. I was quite interested in reading about the Lofthouse landrace seed developing. Thanks.

That really is an interesting site - never heard of it before.

RpR, have you checked the Seed Savers Exchange (the actual exchange, not the SSE catalog) for "uncommon seeds" ?

Weedwhacker said: That really is an interesting site - never heard of it before.

RpR, have you checked the Seed Savers Exchange (the actual exchange, not the SSE catalog) for "uncommon seeds" ?

I was (have not reupped yet) a member of SSE.
I do have, actually kept old spuds, one potato that was exp. two years ago from them.
It is now in several normal seed site catalogs.

I do not do the actually exchange part because for that you need to do correct plant spacing , to prevent cross contamination and I do not have space ( I could not crowd the way I do) for it.

40 years ago , there was a 40 acre hobby farm , with refurb. buildings and house , for sale, for 40.000 dollars.
Machinery included.
I wish, SOOOOO, badly I had used money I had on that, and not a college degree -- (I got one because my brother had one and I wanted one also, no other real reason, neither of us used the ones we got.).

I no longer list seeds for exchange either - but you can still obtain seeds from the members that do. (I recently requested some micro-dwarf tomato seeds.)

53 degrees with a bright cloudy sky and no wind at 12:45 P.M.

Weather forecast shows St. Patrick's day will be the last day where temps. do not get above freezing all day/night long, with snow forecast for the 24th.
I woke up to snow on the ground a few days ago, which was a bit of a surprise.

It has been a long, long time since I put caution to the wind and planted in late March and I do not think I will do that this year, though in the South garden, I may, just may consider it as it get warmer down there quicker than up North.

I could put potatoes in early this year but then they ripen early and then sit in the cellar longer, which is NOT a good thing when one no long cooks for four or more people exept on very rare occastions.
Started purchasing new corn seed; this year I will put in a lot of sweet corn.
Does not mean we will eat a lot of sweet corn but I am putting in the old varieties common 50 years ago as a form of nostalgia .
Sweet corn stalks do not make good corn shocks but life is beach any way, especially as my very large corn shock from last fall, now looks like a couple of Irishmen who left the bar and are leaning against each other outside the bar.

I put in a fair amount of flowers last year for he first time in ages, and am considering putting some down South where , except for roses, they have not been planted heavily since Mom and Dad quit putting them in (45 some years ago.)
I will see if there are any that Turkeys do not like, although, the city did a Turkey extermination bit last fall, but they are still around.

Lack of moisture is -- on my mind, but I am looking foreward to the coming spring garden season.

Not too worried about the lack of moisture either, seeing as we had a very wet winter. I would be surprised if we didn't get a wet spring and summer.

Winter is returning with lows in the twenties to teens for the next two weeks and several day of snow, some possibly heavy.
Temp. right now is 31 degrees a Ten P.M.
Glad I did not uncover the roses.

We might get just as much snow in the next week as we got all winter. It's gonna be 11 tonight.