fluctuations

with a temperature of around five degrees fahernheit it was cold when i got to the garden this morning...three days ago it was sixty degrees and raining which cane a few days after what constituted the first really measurable snowfall here this winter...it will be above freezing soon no doubt as winter steadily become recognizable as a stable, seasonal weather pattern...confusing to both me and the perennials...the brussels sprouts aren't confused anymore...just frozen...and the intermediate wheat grass and the easten gamagrass have gone entirely dormant but that may have more to do with day length than temperature...certainly the yams ( provided those burrows i saw a few weeks ago weren't made by predators...i can hope, but i am not sanguine ) and the asparagus ( and, with luck, the teosinte ) are slumbering...but the wheat grass domesticate from kansas are still fairly green despite the cold and the lack if any sort of snow cover...i was concerned all last winter ( what there was of it ) about the lack of a snow cover on the winter wheat but they did just fine so i will try to lose the concern for now...the last of my seeds fro next season have arrived..so there will be beets, peppers, turnips, squash, snow peas, radishes, potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, ramps, hopi blue maize, northern tepehuan teosinte, ginseng, and lamb's quarters in the garden and as autumn approaches i am going to try a new green manure mix that includes winter rye, yellow peas, hairy vetch, annual ryegrass, and dixie crimson clover...i will be treating them all with inoculant to encourage rizobia...some of it will winter kill but some will winter over to spring and enrich the soil for a new season...no chemicals here.