I went outside yesterday for the first time in several days to tinker in the yard. I was only out for about 15 minutes (not including the time it took me to adjust our satellite dish) but in that time I checked out the little Arbor Day trees, dumped vegetable matter into the compost bin and tried out my new shovel a bit.
I noticed that the deer struck again, one of them took a bite out of a sweet gum tree. Fortunately sweet gum trees grow fast and it should recover provided it’s left alone for a while. I’ll have to find a way to take sweet gum branches off the menu! Perhaps serving some hot sauce with the sweet gum might deter the determined deer!
Weather Report!
It’s been very cold over the last several days. Our thermometer registered 2.3 degrees the other night! It probably doesn’t even come close to the temperatures in many northern gardeners’ backyards but for Tennessee, that’s pretty dang cold! Our house sits in low spot that collects the cold like a magnet and can be quite shady in the evening which amplifies the frigid temperatures. When I went to dump the compost into the bin I tried to turn it and found it frozen solid! It’s not too good for compost, I hope those microbes are keeping warm. The cold weather has frozen the ground pretty thoroughly. That’s not too big of a deal but I was hoping to begin work on my drainage project soon. It hasn’t been put off indefinitely since the weather report says 65 on Sunday.
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Dave–do you really mean 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit? Or 23? Either way, I hope it didn’t do too much damage to your garden. And don’t worry about your compost. Our piles here in PA freeze every winter, then go back to doing their thing once milder weather returns.
A very cold 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit! Other areas in our state hit a low around 10. But since our yard is in a frost pocket I think it dropped lower. We have one of those remote thermometers that will record the lowest temp and that’s what it said! That should be about the coldest weather we will experience over the winter. We may get some lows like that again in February. To contrast that tomorrow is supposed to be 67! We get some crazy weather here in TN! As for damage we should be OK, everything went dormant some time ago.
It was very cold here! Finally, I think most of the plants have bit the dust for the season. But spring is right around the corner…Yahoo!