The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Cold weather at last

Snow on oatsI'd love to tell you that converting from cold frames to quick hoops is the reason we're still enjoying fresh lettuce and greens at the beginning of January.

But the truth is that this winter has been strangely warm.  Last year, our farm was under a coat of snow for nearly the entire month of December and the ground froze solid, but in December 2011 there were days when I didn't even need to light the wood stove.

I hear we're in for an arctic blast this week, and the snow is already falling.  I'll let you know whether the vegetables under the quick hoops survive once the leaves thaw out and either liquify or keep growing.

Even though cold weather is more work, I'm happy to see snow on the ground.  (And maybe the ground will freeze solid enough to drive the truck in?)

Our chicken waterer is easy to convert to a heated version that makes winter chores a breeze.


Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.


I'll be very interested to see how it goes for you with the freeze - we are also down into the teens today. I bought quick hoop materials with Christmas money and am planning to experiment extending the other side of the season. I'll be putting in seeds under the hoops later this week to see if I can get an early germination in February and I am starting cool season crops indoors, also with the intent of transplanting in February once I can keep the night-time temps inside the quick hoops in the 20s.
Comment by John Amrhein Tue Jan 3 09:45:36 2012
I'll be sure to let you know. It got down in the low to mid teens last night, which should be a pretty good test! It certainly tested our other winter projects (heated chicken waterer, water line, new boots.)
Comment by anna Tue Jan 3 15:23:52 2012





profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.