Last night was another cold night, with a low of 23° F. But thankfully everything in the garden seemed to have made it through Ok, and after tonight, when I think it's supposed to be around 28° F, the weather is supposed to warm back up and be more "normal," whatever that is anymore.
The wind had died down some by this morning too, so even though it was still blowing a little, Mo and I went out in the field and collected three more cartloads of old spoiled hay. There's still a lot out there that could be collected, but I don't know if I'll be able to get much more before the grass takes it.
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| Grass coming up where one of the hay rings sat last winter. |
Around 1 pm, I took the cart back down to the woods to cut some more privet. I ended up going back down the hill where I've been working.
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| The privet as it looked when I got down in the woods today. |
I had intended to just cut enough sticks from the section between the two downed trees to make a load for my cart, but once I got started cutting, I just couldn't seem to stop! I ended up going even deeper into the thicket, past that second fallen tree.
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| One of two ancient Eastern Red Cedar trees taken out by the severe storm in 2019. |
That second tree turned out to be a huge Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) - I estimate that the tree was about 20" in diameter about 5' up from the base. And just a little further to the north was another huge cedar, possibly even bigger than the first one. How very sad that that bad storm ended their beautiful lives.
The woods are already turning very green down there because the privet trees are all starting to leaf out. Apparently it didn't get cold enough to hurt it!
And I know that after all of that green will come the clusters of white flowers...followed by even more berries and even more privet. I just can't stand the thought of it!
So because it's too late to do a cut stump treatment, and I couldn't stand to think about the trees making more berries, I started cutting the tops out of them. I think (hope) that by cutting the tops off, they won't make any berries this year. Now they may sprout up from the stump like crazy but I guess so long as they're not making more berries, I can deal with the sprouts...I hope I can anyway. The thought even came to my mind as I was cutting that if they do start to sprout up a lot, I could always spray them with some herbicide. I think that would be an absolute last resort though. I hope Walter and I can get back in there this fall and continue where we left off.
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| Making progress! I didn't aim the camera the right way so it's hard to see where I cut tops past the big cedar tree, but it's in the area in the upper left of the picture. |
I ended up working down there for over two hours, and finally figured I had better head back to the house before RAF started to worry.
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| Sticks to be shredded. |
I had a pretty good pile of sticks, but it wasn't until I got ready to go back up the hill that I realized I had messed up. I had thrown all of the sticks in a pile with the big end pointing down hill...that's backwards from how they needed to be!
I had to pick them all back up and turn them around so I could drag them back up to the top of the hill.
Note to self: From now on, remember to pile the sticks with the big end pointing uphill!
And just about the time I finished turning all of the sticks, I looked up to see RAF standing at the edge of the woods. He said he had been watching some deer watching me! LOL
He helped me load the sticks into the truck, which was very much appreciated, because I had about double what I normally am able to bring back on the cart. Although I had brought some hay twine with me this time, that would have been a tough walk back with that many sticks.
Little Joe and I shredded them, and I was able to finish out the walking row on the south side of the garden by the Fava beans, and put down about 5' on the walking row just north of the brassica bed. I think another load this size will finish that walking row and that will only leave a few bare spots at the east end of the garden that need to be covered. After that, I'll start on the walking rows on the west end of the garden.
I hope that by this fall, some of the little oak trees I've started will be big enough to set out down there. Two of them are growing really well!
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| Southern Red Oak (Quercus falcata) seedlings. Right now, there's only one that looks really healthy, but I hope the others catch up. |
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| Unknown oak, from an acorn collected at the creek. It's also in the red oak group (subgenus Erythrobalanus) but I won't know what it is until it's older. |
As the sun got low in the sky this afternoon, I made sure to water all of the seedlings that are under the grow lights, and then covered everything outside up for one more night - the last night of the winter of 2022-2023.
Because tomorrow is the first day of spring....