It’s really warm in this cold frame.

More than just the name of these things puzzle me. I understand the concept — solar heat, protection from frost — but the actual use of the frame is something I’ve only read about in books. Grandpa used them, but I was too young to understand and pay much attention to his ritualized use. All I remember are tomato plants, but he must have used it for more than just that.

Anne has placed some greens (seeds) inside this frame. We both wonder what might happen. It seems too warm inside for greens. But at night, it would be too cold for anything else — and perhaps even for greens. It’s an experiment. We are scientists.

The frame is screwed together pieces of barn wood and glass from an old door we bought years ago at a garage sale. I feel like I need to make more of these even though I’m not sure we know how to use them.

We started knocking down an ugly bit of fence line today (see left of shed). Anne’s dad suggested taking a sledge hammer to it so we did. Got a nice work out and managed to remove half the fencing (I’m really out of shape). If you click on the picture above, you can get a larger view.

The fence is made from old fiberglass bleacher seats. I’d like to join them at the corners and make several raised beds.

Once the weather cooperates, we will take out the fence posts (more raised beds) and open that section for a large planting that Anne is planning. Good times ahead.

I know, our posting hasn’t been stellar lately. It’s not that we haven’t been busy, we have been… kind of. Busy waiting for winter to end. Busy digging ourselves out of 20 inch snow drifts. Busy playing with WordPress themes and scripts for more flower videos. Busy reading garden books and looking at garden pictures.

Amidst all this business, something amazing has happened. The new season has begun with our first sprouts. This is a little artichoke sprout — imperial star. We also planted Green Globe artichokes, Ailsa Craig Exhibition onion, and a variety of peppers one week ago. None of the peppers have sprouted yet and I am nervous that we might have over-heated them.

The thermometer shows a cool temp of 60° F right now. Seems cold actually. The house is normally kept to around 66° F. But earlier this afternoon, this thermometer registered about 108 F. Yikes! According to the Virginia Cooperative Extension that might be a problem. But I’ve been using these little seed starter domes for years and never really monitored the temp before, so perhaps we’re fine. On the other hand, I’ve never really had such a sunny south-facing window before, so perhaps we’re doomed.

Gardening tip #1: Replace dead plants with live ones.

The Birdfeeder

Al and I spent the last 4 days in warm and sunny St. Pete Beach, Florida. Here’s the view from our room. Poor Al was cooped up in conference rooms most of the time while I took long walks to neighboring beaches like Pass-a-grill and laid by the “adult” pool (no screaming splashing children). The hotel was a resort on the beach much like one I worked at while living in the area 15 years ago. I tipped well remembering the disgust I felt at all the well-to-do tourists in $200/night rooms who stiffed me. I am not nostalgic about those years spent in the hospitality business. I feel for all the people my age and older I saw working behind and counters and carrying room service trays.
With the extreme winter we’ve been experiencing this year in Iowa, Florida has never felt better. It was wonderful stepping out of the airport into warm, balmy air and seeing green, LIVING plants and trees, some of which were even in bloom! I did visit one garden center in St. Pete. Plants were marked something like: hardy, half hardy, and tender. No zone info. I considered purchasing a gallon pot of society garlic marked “hardy” but restrained myself. It’s a good thing I did because I googled it back in the hotel and found that it was hardy in zone 7. I enjoyed looking at the selection for whatever zone Florida is and smelling annuals in bloom like sweet allyssum.
This is a sand dune with what I believe are native Savannah grasses and flowers.

Purple Day Lily

The college was closed yesterday on account of all the snow. SNOW DAY! And today we are on a two hour delay. PARTIAL SNOW DAY! All that extra time affords me some quality project progress. The project du jour was the bat house. According to many bat friendly resources (here is one), just one of these flying mammals can consume nearly 1000 mosquitoes in an hour. Bats are also great pollinators and seed spreaders. Just too many reasons not to try to attract more. If you look closely at the photo below, it appears as if there is some interest already.

Plans for this single chamber bat house are free on the Bat Conservation International website. They also have good tips on where to locate the bat house once complete. I adapted the plans only slightly since I was using reclaimed lumber from the barn. I still need to caulk up the seems and give this home a few coats of paint.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! (It is the year of the Rat today, but from what I have learned, bats are not related to rodents).

During our recent deconstruction of the kitchen we found ourselves with a surplus of wood pieces and other scraps. Anne had been talking about bird houses for a while and even found several books on the subject at the library. The books featured some castles and other crazy palace like structures people have created for their yards. Ours would be more rustic, Anne told me, and she was right.

I’m tempted to leave you guess who built which ones, but that would lead me to question your guesses. So, no guessing allowed. The two on the left are my design and the two on the right are Anne’s. Most of them are held together with simple butt joints and nails. Nothing too complicated and nothing that will last more than a year or two. A good little weekend project and nice re-use of scrap materials. Now I want to build a bat house and a purple martin house.

Yeah! A new theme for the blog. I needed something new. That old one was bringing me down. Anne and I were looking at old summer photos, like the one featured on top, and praying the groundhog would come out in shorts and tanktop today. It didn’t. So, I did the only thing I could think of — update our blog theme. This one is widget ready, so I can widgetize the crap out of this site now. Hope everyone likes it and will keep reading.

We never did purchase a tractor. It just seems like such an expense. So we’ve had to deal with the snow, or rather we have had to drive over and through the snow the best we can. It’s gone rather well actually. We can’t get the VW out just yet, but the truck has managed.

Where the drive levels off near the barn, you can see the entrance to the field on the left. We used this when the drive turned to a sheet of ice after the early ice storms.  We would continue to use this entrance, but the creek thawed and eroded some — we were scraping bottom with the truck. We dream about relocating the driveway to the field. We dream about a lot of things.