January was pretty mild this year, with warmer than average temperatures and even some severe weather. But by late in the month, the weather forecast was calling for snow in parts of Arkansas.
And it did snow...quite a bit in some parts of the state. But notice that little hole in the snow map just north and west of Russellville. I don't know how they did it, but they had excluded that little bit of the state from the winter storm warning, and by golly, they got it exactly right. That little hole is where we are.
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| A dusting of snow on January 24th. |
While it was snowing all around us on January 23, we just had a cold steady rain. It finally got cold enough overnight that we had just a dusting when we got up the next morning. I actually felt quite cheated!
The next winter storm that came through at the end of January didn't entirely miss us like the one before, but we were very lucky that it stayed to our south. We got just a little ice and sleet, but parts of the state to our south and east were hit very hard with a thick layer of ice. Thankfully we didn't get enough to cause us to lose power, and even what was on the roads didn't last too long.
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| White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) waiting for me to go back inside so it could come back to the feeder! |
But the cold didn't last long. I took advantage of the warmer weather to collect another load of hay/straw/manure from the field yesterday afternoon. And after I unloaded the straw, I had a look a the compost bays and was again annoyed that only one of them had heated up. I decided to go ahead and turn bay #1 into the empty bay #2. As I turned it, I think I found the reason why it wasn't heating up... it was too dry. I added water and some more coffee grounds and vegetable scraps to the pile when I turned it. We'll see what it does in a day or two.
After a slow start this morning (turning the compost always makes me SORE!), I decided do some more work on the privet in the woods. Just for the record, that's really hard work! Even though the temperature was probably only in the upper 40s or low 50s, I was dripping sweat as I was dragging the cut limbs up the hill to the spot where I had decided to pile them up!
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| More privet cut back, ready for the chainsaw. |
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| Herbicide on cut privet limbs. This really hasn't been cut low enough to the ground, and while I thought about treating all of them as I cut them off, I decided against it and will just wait until I can cut them close to the ground with the chainsaw. |
I think I trimmed back about five privet "trees" this morning, and was able to see a bit deeper into the woods. So many trees down, and so much privet.
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| Where the storm took down a swath of trees on April 30, 2019, the woods have just been taken over by privet. |
I spent part of the afternoon chipping up the limbs I brought back last time I worked in the woods. I was able to cover about 6' of one of the walking rows and the edge of the garden in front of the 4' wide row with chips about 4" thick. Little Joe does a good job and can easily handle the privet limbs that are about 3/4" to 1" in diameter.
I decided I wasn't going to get in a rush to plant my seeds this year, so I waited until January 24 to plant pepper seeds. The Jimmy Nardello Sweet Pepper seeds were coming up a week later, and the next day, a few of the Jalapeno seeds were also sprouting. The poblano peppers were just starting to come up today.
I also planted fava beans on January 24, after soaking them in a damp paper towel for about three days. They were also starting to come up after a week.
The celery planted on January 24 has not come up yet.
Last night, I planted tomatoes (Cherokee Purple, Arkansas Traveler, San Marzano, and Rutgers), broccoli (Green Sprouting Calabrese), and kale (Lacinato).
And today, I planted more seeds! Cherry tomato seeds I saved from the plant that grew in my compost bin last year; Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage; Green Tomatillo; Fordhook Swiss Chard; Rhubarb Red Swiss Chard; Bibb lettuce; Romaine lettuce; Black Seeded Simpson lettuce; English Oak leaf lettuce (something like that); and some of the seeds I saved from the purple radishes that I grew last spring.
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| Module tray sitting on the Dish receiver (it makes a great heating "mat" for seed germination). Right now there's nothing under the tray, but I'll put in in something when it comes time to water. Don't want water running down into the receiver! (Terrible picture, I know...my phone camera is absolutely AWFUL!) |
Tomorrow is supposed to be another nice day, so I'll probably try to spend about two hours or so down in the woods working on the privet. As I was walking back to the house this morning, I decided to just go ahead and order the DeWalt electric chainsaw, because without it, there's just no way I'm going to make any real progress against those hateful plants. So tomorrow I'll concentrate on just cutting down the smaller plants that I can easily cut at ground level with the loppers...get those cut and treated with herbicide before they have a chance to get any bigger!
The very straight privet limbs will be brought back to the house so Little Joe can shred them to continue covering my walking rows. Might not get that done this weekend, but if the weather stays nice, I can always shred a few in the evenings when I get off work.
I told my mom about planting seeds and just had to laugh at myself when I did. After the horrible hot dry spell we had last summer, why on earth am I doing it all over again? I guess that's just the optimism that gardening can bring. Maybe the new year will be better, right?