January Thaw

 We have had warm rain for several days now and although the ground is still frozen, I can see everything that has been happening under the snow.  It is nice to be able to walk around without bitter wind or rain or wading through snow.  It is a great opportunity to get out and check on the garden and my winterization efforts.  My most particular interest is whether or not the field mice have set up camp under the deck and used my favorite Prima Ginger Echinacea as a snack bar.  I amped up my protective efforts this fall but it doesn't appear that they are nesting there at all.  We have been keeping the deck shoveled and that might account for their abandoning the idea because there is more activity and it as not as sheltered as it was last year.

There is activity over by the strawberry bed.  You can see both tunnels under the snow and holes into the earth.  It does not appear that they have tunneled underneath the boards to the strawberry plants... yet.  The only way to exclude them is to create a raised bed with 1/4" hardware cloth on the bottom.  These are the problems that keep long term gardeners rebuilding and improving their infrastructure each year.

My second goal was to check that this raspberry plant was well watered.  It was.  It has been snowed on and rained on of course, but foliage can divert a lot of that away from the soil so it is important that any container plants are kept watered throughout the winter as well.  But you don't want it too wet either.  This container is up on pot feet to keep the drain hole from being blocked.

I see that the deer are still walking up to the pear tree and challenging my defenses.  I took the opportunity to rearrange the netting which had been somewhat weighed down by snow and needed to be pulled back up the poles so the snow pack doesn't raise the deer up to a level where they can reach over the top.

We had days of high winds last weekend.  These London Plane trees purge themselves of their interior branches as they grow  This makes for a nice airy canopy on the inside but pretty much guarantees that there will be sticks to pick up on a regular basis.  I got a whole armload.

I noted the munching activity.  The deer have eaten the tips off of every woody shrub.  I don't mind this much as I consider it size control.  I only have one covered because they worked on that one all summer too which is beginning to set it back.

I left the evergreen Penstemon uncovered this winter.  The leaves that are green all winter will look dull and tired in the spring.  They are not easy to clean up so I am trying the deer-pruning system this year to see how they react to that.  If it turns out to be detrimental I will have to put hardware cloth over them like I did last year.   If this is the extent of it I think it will be OK, but the deer will sometimes go too far and eat down into the growing portion of the plant as well.  They have no self control. 

It was a good thing I got my tour done yesterday because this morning we have a dense inch of powder snow over everything again and it looks like January.