January's Garden (2024)

The howling, winter artic blast blew in. Six inches of snow fell.  The temperature dropped to minus nine one night.  

The hoop houses froze to the ground and caved in from the weight.

The compost pile was not covered in snow and the dirt was scattered everywhere which seemed odd until closer inspection.

Hungry birds were scratching around looking for delicacies and toppled the mound.  I can't begrudge them fresh, chilled worms since we were only feeding them dried seeds on the back deck.

A few days later, another storm arrived. It added an inch of sleet and ice on top of the snow. 

The hoop houses sagged even further.

I should have added more wires or strung them together for more support but, oh well. Putting them up is a hard enough job as is and I ran out of energy last fall.

When there were no more fresh salad greens, we ventured outside to the backyard grocery. The covers were still frozen to the ground and ripped when lifted. We decided to only open one. 

Seeing something alive and green under layers of snow and ice is startling. The red Merlot lettuce didn't have a flaw.

Further down the row where the hoop house collapsed, the plants were partly damaged.

We could have harvested much more but our fingers were frozen. 

A week later, the sun returned and it was possible to lift the covers.  The damaged places could not recover...

but most of the garden survived. I have no complaints.

The snow seemed to have insulated the houses safely from the blowing winds and everything was well hardened off. They were able to endure the low temperatures - very few died.

There were some big surprises. The Golden Chinese Napa Cabbage nor any other napa variety has survived past the end of December in my garden. Right before the storm arrived, most of them were harvested and preserved.  Only those that were weak and bug devoured remained (Nobody wants to eat a bug gobbled leaf).  To my complete shock, they made it through the storms fine.

Also, winter radishes have never survived to the end of January. 

The Merlot Lettuces that were placed out in the open as an experiment to see if they could survive, laughed in the face of the storms.

Those living under the hoop house sneered at the blizzards. They have earned a permanent place in every winter garden I will ever grow again.

Everything else that normally survives did fine.

Last year's garden was completely destroyed by an early storm and all that remained was a mudhole. This year, the winter garden has exceeded expectations and was worth all the hard work. I wish I could take credit for this success, but everything depends on the weather.

Last Month's December Garden (2023)
Last Year's January's Garden (2023)

Through the Garden Gate