A couple days of rain have melted the snow and I was delighted to find signs of life in my garden. I am amazed because we had night time lows of negative 10 degrees and I did little if anything to protect the plants.
I truly expected my strawberries to die. They have survived previous winters, but this year an early storm caught me off guard and I did not have enough straw to completely cover them. I ran around the yard looking for anything to throw over the plants and found some dead leaves. Even still the coverage was incomplete. I consoled myself by saying that once the first snow melted, I would go in and put more straw down. But the snow never melted and we kept getting more and then the temperatures dropped so incredibly low that I gave up all hope. Yes, I did a happy dance when I found that my berries were not just living, but thriving – thank goodness for tall fences!
Amazingly my arugula, patience dock, Swiss chard, and parsley all survived the winds, snow, and extreme lows. Some of the older leaves look less than desirable, but there were enough tender young greens to make a “garden” salad in January. In the Sierra Nevada Foothills!
What is growing in your garden? Has the odd weather we’ve had this winter had an impact on your garden?
