I finally got to do some wintersowing today.  I planted one jug each of the following in ProMix BX.  (Sorry, Carol.  I even went looking for potting soil today while in Hannibal but nobody had any yet.  I’ll see what Quincy has when I’m in there next week.)

• Alpine Strawberry, Ruegen
• Alpine Strawberry, White Soul
• Alpine Strawberry, Yellow Wonder
• Alpine Strawberry, unnamed variety
• Rhubarb, Glaskins
• Ground Cherry, Aunt Molly’s
• Asparagus, UC157
• Asparagus, Mary Washington

I’m trying a couple of different things this year:

I am writing labels directly on the outside of the jugs with both a paint pen and an eyeliner pencil.  (Thanks, Ilene for the eyeliner pencil idea!)  Inside of the jugs, I have my usual mini-blind slat labels.  One side has regular pencil writing and the other has the eyeliner pencil.  I’ll see which holds up the best through all of the elements.

In other years, I cut a “window” into each milk jug so that there was a flap on each side.  The jugs held their strength that way so I could easily pick them up and move them around.  However, it was a pain to wash them out for saving from year to year and it was very difficult to remove the plants for transplanting without cutting the jug apart.  This year, I’ve done a cut all the way around the jug but left it attached at the handle area.  Then, on the opposite corner, I punched a hole in both top and bottom, then closed with wire ties.  That will make it possible to remove plants and clean them at the end of the wintersowing season and save them for next year.  I don’t want to have to make these suckers every single year.  I’m lazy, you know.

(FYI:  I’m going to try to keep a journal of sorts on here about the garden this year, documenting planting dates & methods, notes on varieties, etc.  I’ve done a little bit of that here before but nowhere near enough for me to use as a reference down the road.  I will this year.  Just warning ya…)

Have you heard of True Potato Seeds?  If not and you’re a crazy, gardening fool like me, do some reading up on it!  Very interesting stuff!  Growing potatoes from TPS for the first time is the one single thing I am most excited about!  Ever!

Whew.  That was a lot of exclamation marks.  I can’t help it.  I’m excited.  Tom Wagner just opened his new seed store, New World Seeds & Tubers.  Not only is he the TPS guru but he’s also a tomato guru.  Check out some of his breeding projects.  Very cool.  Since his store has just opened, there’s not yet many tomatoes.  I bet he’ll probably be listing new varieties for quite a while.

Did I mention I’m excited??

Take a deep breath, Diane.  Calm down.

In other, less exciting news, there’s been a lot of snuggling going on around here lately to stay warm.

Sister snuggling.

Chicken snuggling:  With temps down to -10 F plus some nasty wind chills bringing it down to -20 to -25 F, I must admit I got a little nervous about the fresh-air chicken house.  We gave them a little extra corn to “burn” for body heat and they did great!

And stinky, furry snuggling:  Kong was fine outside in the weather with his double fur coat, he really was.  The kids, however, got upset when he’d sit down for a bit too long and get snow starting to cover him.  I couldn’t take those poor puppy eyes (from the kids) so we let him in for a couple of nights.  He behaved perfectly well.  Good Kong!

(Yes, that’s a big wet spot on Isaac’s bed.  Dog fur + snow = soggy mess even if you attempt to towel dry him.)

Continuing the wintersowing journey of 2011:

So I got the ProMix but still didn’t have nearly enough milk jugs.  Last weekend, Steve hit up Starbucks in Quincy and came home with 50 jugs (and three garbage bags of coffee grounds).  Yay for all of you who pay an arm & leg for foo-foo caffeinated drinks!

After a very long day of washing, cutting, and twist-tying the jugs, I was finally ready to wintersow:

Or was I?  The ProMix is in the basement.  Under all of that snow.  Doh.

Yesterday was spent getting the driveway somewhat cleared so digging out the basement didn’t happen until today.  By the time I was done, I decided that baking a cake sounded more appealing than playing with mud in the basement & digging out the spot where I’ll put the jugs.

P.S. & FYI:  Whiteouts don’t really make for interesting photos.

It’s that time again.  Time to plant some seeds!  If you don’t already know about it, go to wintersown.org and read, read, read!

Have seeds:  Check.

Have potting soil:  Check.

Have “pen” set up for containers:  Check.

Ignore the overturned chair I was too lazy to pick up:  Check.

Have milk jugs for containers:  Um.  Let me get back to you on that one.

Today’s adventure started with loading all of the kids into the van.  The very cold van.  The very cold van that takes14 hours to warm up.  There really are six kids under there somewhere.

Then off to Quincy we set to do some shopping and get a missed bit from the accident repair fixed on Steve’s truck.  After we were able to drop Steve back off to his mended truck, the kids and I darted to find a garden store I’d looked up (and Steve headed to work).  Oh, how I love this store!!  George Keller & Sons, downtown Quincy, is my dream store.  Tons and tons of bulk seed!  I did not dare fully explore the entire store as that would be very, very hazardous to our budget.  I did, however, fill Steve’s newly vacated seat with a respectable replacement.  ProMix!

ProMix was just a legend to me.  In Oklahoma, I could never, ever find it.  I had only read about it.  Over and over again.  However, I was forever stuck with Miracle Grow crap.  I hate that stuff!  I yearned for some alternatives but remained unsatisfied until today.  They had ProMix!  I’m so excited, I cannot even stand myself right now.  This stuff had better be good.  Not that it can be any worse than Miracle Grow.

With my new compressed bale companion riding shotgun, we headed home the back way.

Snow.  It never ends.

On and on and on.

Home sweet home.

Garden geeking, that is.

Those of you who know me well know how anal I can get, most especially when it come to garden planning.  I live for graph paper and mechanical pencils!  This afternoon, after Steve & I tromped through the snow to get some accurate measurements, I transferred my graph paper sketches to a PhotoShop illustration to share with you.  This is only an initial, rough draft and will evolve as spring nears, of course.

The green circles at the bottom will be the wheels used as raised beds for herbs and smaller permanent plantings such as rhubarb and asparagus.  The brown circles on the right side are hazelnut trees.  The purple are elderberries and the red are plums.  (We ordered a total of 100 of those three last week to be shipped in March.  They’ll act as a bit of a screen for the road & neighbors, as well as cornfield overspray, should there be any.  We are completely surrounded by cornfields!)  The small brown rectangles will be raised beds, a few built each year, for veggies.  (For scale, they are 4′ x 20′.)  Some will be actual raised beds with sides while others will just be “humped” rows.  The large brown rectangle on the left will be for on-grade larger plantings of veggies, such as corn, melons, or potatoes.  I’m not yet sure what the final ratio of raised beds : humped rows : on-grade will be so take the amounts up there with a large grain of salt.

Overall dimensions are 220′ wide by 170′ deep.  Directions above are the usual with north being at the top.  The top/north side is the back property line.  The right/east side is near the county road.  To the bottom/south is the back yard and house.

The garden will be completely fenced and the yard will have another fence around it.  The dogs will then be able to patrol completely around the garden and chickens, hopefully (!!!) scaring away the majority of deer, moles, and whatever else is plotting against my sanity.  We were also going to do a chicken “moat” around the garden but decided to change the overall plan.  This is much simpler and easier in several ways so the birds will get their run in a different direction.  We’ve also factored in room to drive along the trees and will put in gates in case the need arises.

By the way, the chickens are absolutely thriving in the fresh-air chicken house!  Huge, healthy birds and laying well in the middle of January.  How cool is that??

Most of you know that Steve now works for a wheel manufacturer.  Really big wheels!  When something goes wrong in the process, the imperfect wheels are thrown into the scrap pile.  Occasionally, Steve gets to bring one home.  The ones pictured below are what we have collected so far.  Each wheel is cut in half so that we get two from each.  They’re still plenty tall enough to be used as perfect raised beds.  Once spring arrives, these (and others still to be brought home) will be planted with herbs and berries, garlic and onions.  We’ll probably end up painting them for looks and, of course, arranging them nicely.

Today, we have several new inches of snow and the wheel halves are buried.  Glad I got a pic of them before the snow began.  I’m in a garden frenzy right now but not able to do anything — at least I can make a garden-related post.  That’s gotta make me feel better, right?  Right??

Nope.  It didn’t help.

Having left the nestbox behind in the move, the girls have been slumming it.  But remember the pile of scrap wood Steve brought home the other day?  He turned some of it into a beautiful nestbox and the girls are loving it.  Like everything else, a paint job will have to wait for warmer weather.

Ooh!  Ahh!  Isn’t she beautiful?  Steve brought this darling home this week.  Big Brownie points for Steve!

We had to leave our tillers behind in the move and I’ve been bellyaching about it ever since.  Now I have to find something new to complain about.

There’s still much to be done, of course, but the main part is finished and the birds have moved in.  The run will be completed as we have time and money for fencing, adding more and expanding it over the next several months.  Eventually, there will be a chicken “moat” surrounding the gardens.  (The cornfield in the background will be the main veggie garden.  To the right of the chicken house, in the grass you see, will be the herb garden.  Raised beds are in progress right now for that.)

The east, west, and north walls, along with the roof, are sheet metal.  The front, south-facing wall is expanded metal (think chicken wire on steroids).  This allows lots of air movement, keeping the environment nice & dry.  With the opening facing south, that also allows the sun to enter and warm the coop in the cooler months while, with the summer’s sun being higher in the sky, much less sun enters, allowing for more shade.  When we get a few warmer days, we’ll scrub the accumulated dirt from the sheet metal and paint the front wall to look nicer.

The interior will have a half-wall sheeted to keep out the accumulation of crud.  We still have to make a good nest box but, for now, buckets will do.  They have one simple 2 x 4 for their roost but we will expand that as we get more birds in the spring.  We did manage to bring the cool feeder Steve made from Oklahoma.  And see the pumpkin pile?  Yummy (and free!) chicken food!  We’re giving them a few days to have fun eating up the grass and its bugs.  Once they’re through with that, we’ll throw in corn stalks and leaves for some fresh fun & bedding.