Cold Climate Gardening

–I replanted my squash and cucumbers. Not a single seed had sprouted. This doesn’t seem like a good sign to me, but this afternoon I dutifully replanted and hope the reason for no sprout was only because of the cold weather.

–I cleared out my corn plot this afternoon. I hope to plant tomorrow. I don’t plant a lot of corn and I’ve found that the most efficient way for me to plant is to heavily mulch the garden plot. This involves extra initial labor, but much less later weeding. I never have time to weed.

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Jane Milliman of Upstate Gardeners Journal has set up a discussion forum for all of us upstaters. It could become a great place to exchange the specialized knowledge that comes from gardening in one place for several years, but only if you register and put your 2 cents in. So do it!

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First it was the windy day that blew a wheelbarrow over on top of my best tomatoes. Not, of course, on my over 200 nicotiana, but on my tallest, biggest tomatoes.

Then there was the night it was supposed to get down to 39 degrees and actually got down as low as at least 34; my dad and brother had to scrape sheets of ice off their windshields.

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Monday morning was almost a weather catastrophe. I say almost because it did frost Monday morning, but the frost was spotty in such a way that not too much damage was done to important plant life.

Late season frosts are a far too common occurrence in this area. The last two years’ apple harvests were destroyed in this manner, not to mention strawberries, and lilac blossoms. This May was not very warm, but with all the rain, and the continual cloudiness, the night time temperatures were stabilized and refrained from dipping below the freezing mark. Until this Monday.

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