snow cover

I was almost too late blanketing my perennials in the garden. I'd put about an inch of dry leaves over the Rhubarb earlier, but hadn't yet covered the Strawberries. Planned to use leaves there, too, but then everything I read online said leaves are too heavy, will smother and kill the plants. Straw (of course!) is lighter, ideal mulching material for strawberries. But it seems shredded newspaper will do in a pinch, so when I found out it might snow today I got out a box knife and scissors and kiddo helped me shred a two-foot high stack of old newspapers. It was just enough to cover the strawberry bed in two inches of shredded paper, and I got it laid down just as the flakes were beginning to fall.

Then went and raked up the remainder of leaves off the front lawn, and heaped another two or three inches of those over the Rhubarb. I'm sure I looked pretty silly raking leaves in a half-inch of snowfall, but they were there, and I needed them! I'm really anxious to eat some Rhubarb next year, so whatever it takes to get it through the winter alive.

I've just realized I forgot to plant Garlics this fall. So I won't have any new garlic next year. Spring-planted garlic doesn't work for me as well, they get harvested too late to cure in the hot summer weather. But we still have a mesh bag of small heads from last year's garlic, and all the nice fat heads from this year's, still unused. So plenty to last for a while.

My coldframes over the Lettuce don't seem to be working. The plants are wilting and frost-damaged. Stacking materials just doesn't seal out the cold well enough. I'll probably have to buy a real solid coldframe or row covers or something next year if I want to try and overwinter some greens...