Notes From Zone 4

No gardening over the weekend. Saturday I cut and stacked firewood after taking Lisa to the airport. Sunday rained all day. One more package from Dutch gardens today. Their website listed hardy (zone 4) glads, and also grecian windflowers rated for zone 4 instead of the usual zone 7. We’d been reading about people wintering

Read more »

We didn’t get much done in the garden today. The weather was bad, and we were having major problems with one of the kids. Princess stayed with us the whole time, including taking a ride in the back of the truck! What little we did was mostly very close to the house, bringing in firewood

Read more »

We’re finally home on the weekend again, and worked ourselves until we were exhausted outside today. Marmalade kept us company no matter where we went outside. It was very cute. The first thing we did was get started again on the firewood. We heat with wood on the first floor of our house, and in

Read more »

I started some veggies up on the upstairs balcony today. Last year, I did lettuce, garlic, and onions. The garlic never did anything, the onions were great as scallions, and the lettuce was a hit with everyone, and lasted deep into the summer. So this year, since the veggie patch is going to take a

Read more »

Yet more snow, and it’s sticking. I’m not sure we’re going to have another thaw this winter, which is a bit early for us. It’s not unusual for us to have the first sticking snow around Thanksgiving day, but we’ve had three or four already this month, and with these last several, there’s been no melting in between. We did some more stacking of the firewood, having to brush off the snow. We (and the kids) have stacked quite a bit of it on the back deck, right by our bedroom door. We are hoping the deck is strong enough to hold the load! But it will sure beat hauling it up from outside the basement door. We have a fairly decent size stash under the deck, but we know it’s no where near enough. Oh well. The view of the swamp is just gorgeous after a snow storm.

We could only work out there for a couple of hours in these temps, and with the low stamina that we both have, post-surgery. We’ve waited too long to put the garden to bed, of course. Pulling glads while there is snow on the ground? I haven’t a clue if they’ll come back for me

Read more »

We worked hard outside today. I’m exhausted. We hauled wood from where the electric company had cut it, after Frank found out the other morning that one of our neighbors thought we didn’t want it, or something, and so had been taking the good stuff out. How very rude of him. Looking at these pictures, it’s a depressingly small pile we hauled in for how tired I am and how my back feels! We even bribed Valerie and Steve into working for a couple of hours with us. We need to do this about a dozen more times this year, I fear. And to think it all still has to be cut to length and stacked, then hauled in all winter. At least I managed to back the truck up behind the house — pretty tricky maneuvering, in reverse, but I impressed them all with my superior skills. Hard Work! We filled the truck up four times, I think.

We did have that hard freeze earlier this week. Then it warmed up for a couple of days, but there was definite frost on the car this morning, and many of my plants bit the dust, but not all of them. I covered a bunch up with clear plastic bags until I couldn’t stand the cold anymore, and the wind blew it all away. We did get outside and have a productive day in the yard today though. The list of fall chores is very long, and we got a lot of them knocked off, which feels great. I spent a long time carefully mowing the lawn. It might be the last time this season. I have to admit I’m impressed with how the lawn’s come out, finally. We seeded and weeded enough, that’s for sure, but it sure has paid off. Looks very healthy, actually.