january twenty-seventh outside and in

stumpy, the ex-locust tree, tells me there has been more snow overnight..

and so do the fir trees which were snow-less yesterday...and i am in favor of snow even with the navigational impediments it delivers...

because cold has settled in for something of a stay ( more there in a bit )...

the good news is there is no more green showing in the winter rye bed and there is 5.125 inches of snow cover...

and there is minimal green in the wheat bed because of the 5.25 inches of cover there...so snow is good...the forecast says so...

it has its twists and turns...no doubt about that....i suppose there have been fifty-five degree ( fahrenheit ) temperature swings over five day periods before...still...unsettled seems a good term...

what happens outside is clearly our of my control...inside i have the ability ( and responsibility) to intervene in the lives of plants i am responsible for and this spud was ion the verge of outgrowing the peat pot i was in..it was time for a move...

so i drilled some drainage holes in an old five gallon bucket, being sure to knock down the burrs it left in side so the water would actually drain...

i did not knock the soil off the roots when i removed the plant but you can see the roots are a shade longer than the plant is tall..the had pretty much found the bottom of the peat pot...

i planted it about two thirds of the way down the bucket so i can back fill as the plant grows to stimulate tuber growth...experience tells me not to expect much in terms of size...probably just a few drops i can plant outside in spring...that will be good enough for an indoor winter season in completely unnatural conditions...i set the bucket on another upturned one under the lights by the mashua..which is doing well itself...

puddles' kids look a lot like mom did right about this time of the basement season...leggy and falling over...still..they and the onions are green and i do believe they will be around for the outdoor rejuvenation their mom saw come april...

and over in the opposite corner the cohabiting yacon and mashua are looking robust as well...the basement season has expanded a bit but is still under control...iot that far to spring even though a casual stroll outside might convince you otherwise.

microclimates and snow?

the internet says it is seventeen degrees ( fahrenheit ) here...my thermometer disagrees and has an ambient air temperature that is seven degrees warmer...microclimate? either way it is well below freezing and the snow cover has stabilized with an icy crust after two days of above or near freezing temperatures and rain...

there is considerably more green showing in the rye bed...

the green is showing because the rains of the past two days have pockmarked the surface and erased 1.9375 inches of snow from the bed's surface...

there has always been green showing in the wheat bed...

the surface of the wheat bed is also pockmarked but not nearly as deeply as the rye bed and it has only lost 1 inch of snow cover...i am assuming the ambient air temperature was nearly the same for both since they abut one another, so how to account for the difference...

i am uncertain...the beds are set back in the yard by a pair of locust trees and the one by the wheat bed is a few feet closet than the one that is near the rye bed...so its branches overhang the wheat bed more fully than the one by the rye ( and shade the bed more after they leaf...fortunately later in spring ) and so may have deflected more of the rain from the wheat bed than the rye...grasping at straws? probably...still there was an uneven amount of snow loss over the surface of two beds located next to one another and i am human so i need an explanation.

how's the weather?

well...i have seen better...the temperature is hanging right around freezing...a touch above perhaps...the deck in front of my house is icy...but the roads are not...probably because they are salted to an evil extent ( the sides of my truck tell me so )...and the temperature has had an impact on the snow pack on my overwintering beds...

there wasn't much green showing in the rye bed yesterday and there isn't much today either despite the fact that it has lost .9375 of an inch of snow cover since yesterday...

there was always green showing in the wheat bed and there is a bit more today because, in an unexpected bit of symmetry given the micro climates i discover in my yard, it to has lost .9375 of an inch of snow...there must be a consistency of temperature out there today...so we still have the requisite four inches of cover on both beds...hoping it holds...

the winds of the past few days have left a considerable number of teocintli seeds undisturbed...there are still multiple ears that are unopened and intact...the seed must be of suspect viability...i imagine the late emerging ears which were stilol green at the first hard frost are what is left...

the egyptian walking onions are looking a bit battered by recent events...they are also still defiantly green...i will be interested to see what the areal bulbs have been up to while under cover...

finally...a photo of deep river in winter...this was yesterday...sunny...with a very cold wind.

snow pack and vines

even though there was some additional snow yesterday there is still some green poking up through the white in the winter wheat and rye beds...

the additional snow complicated roadway navigation last night...however the wheat bed now has what appears to be an even 5 inches of snow cover...

and the rye has 4.9375...which is fine given the current temperature...

and the fact that the high will only ( if the forecast is true ) only be six degrees higher and the low tonight in single digits..the problem is tomorrow's high is allegedly going to be in the upper thirties ( all temperatures in fahrenheit ) and it is supposed to rain...then the temperatures are alleged to be dropping into areas well below freezing ans i am wondering how much snow cover i will lose before we go back to single digit lows and have exposed plants...the climate driven weather has not really been cooperating with these overwintering plants of late...winters seem to be becoming both more intense in terms of low temperatures and shorter in duration...neither of which fits in with the artificially selected evolution of these plants...look for another weather report tomorrow...

while i was out there i had a look at the grapes...the seedless vines did well in their second year and it it looks to be time to expand the trellis to accommodate them...

a shade to the southeast the gnarled old concord grape root stock...

continues to send vines up through the neighboring fir tree...

to join the ones ( admittedly difficult to see ) already in the catalpa tree..the greeks used to plant grape vines with olive trees so they would grow together...i have inadvertently rediscovered the process in my yard...it took over twenty years though...patient people.

january fungus

snow day

the temperature readings at nine thirty this morning and at three this afternoon were fairly consistent...both nearly the same and well within the snow zone...there was some change in snow depth however...

despite the snow that was coming down this morning there was till significant green showing in the beds...

with what was in the bed before today that hadn't melted and the added accumulation the ry bed had 3.4375 inches of snow this morning...

and the wheat bead measured 3.625 inches...

by three this afternoon there was less green on display in either bed...

by that time the rye was under almost exactly 4 inches...

and the wheat was covered by 4.5 inches...that depth is doubtlessly not consistent across the bed...there is a 30 mph wind going on out there and there is snow everywhere even though it has stopped falling...there is a possibility of more snow this evening and tomorrow which may even out the cover...temperatures are set to yo-yo between thirty-nine and one ( fahrenheit )over the next week and the roots and crowns will need the cover if it actually gets that cold...

at this late date there are still some teocintli seeds hanging around the dead stalks and shattered ears...if this wind keeps up they may not be around too much longer.