The Daily: 22 January 2024

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These last few days we have been reminded that we live at high latitude and altitude here in Central Vermont. Temperatures have been hovering near 0°F. Saturday, it snowed all day, but it was so cold that it was falling as frozen mist, the individual flakes nearly invisible. But after eighteen hours of mist, there was about six inches of new snow. Fortunately, it was light enough that I could sweep it away, but I had to go out several times in the deep chill to dust the garden path.

Sunday, it was mostly sunny, but still in the low single digits, and by noon the wind was blowing hard from the northwest. All that powdery snow was swept off rooftops and sculpted into sharp-edged dunes. I did not go outside. I draw the line at wind.

So I cooked another round of stew. This time it was wild rice and roasted sweet potatoes in a base of leftover black bean and chick pea hummus, a roasted butternut squash, walnut oil and a bit of semi-soft drunken goat cheese. It is warming and filling. I also baked a boule of whole wheat sourdough to go with it — and to heat up the kitchen. And just to keep the oven on, I made some ginger scones. I may have to pass these on to other folks because I’m sure I can’t eat a dozen of them, but it was a great way to warm the house and make it smell fantastic into the bargain.

It is the end of January already. So I also forced myself to sit with the garden plan for a few hours, enough that I will be ready order the seeds I’ll need. I have a plan for starting things in the basement. Since the books are gone, there is more space for mess making. I bought a cheap stainless steel work table and will use that as a potting bench. I will need to put down furring strips or something to keep the pot trays off the cold metal, but I do have an electric heater — a purchase last fall when the thermostat decided to flake out and not turn the furnace on. So I can keep the area around the table warm enough to germinate most seeds. This will mostly be the nightshades, a family of plants that all need a long growing season, though I will be starting some of the cabbages down there also. Cabbages are cool season plants that incongruously like to germinate at higher soil temperatures. So they work better as indoor starts in the spring. And while I have this going on, I will probably start the sunflowers down there and maybe a few essential melons and winter squash so that I can have a hope of saving some seeds from the rodents.

I do have to say that the squirrel population is much reduced this year. For the last couple years, my soft-hearted neighbor was feeding them all winter. There were dozens of them rampaging all over our properties. He is not feeding them this year. I think that stopped when he planted a few veg plants in his small raised bed and had the entire thing wiped clear. Almost overnight. But whenever it stopped, it has definitely reduced the rodent numbers. I have had none on my bird feeders and none in the attic and just one round of chewing up the tin foil in the recycling bin on the back porch. So maybe, just maybe, there won’t be quite as much squirrel predation on my garden this summer. (Hey, I can dream…)

I am going to try to get more jungle domestication done this year. There will be pruning and cutting down. There are a few trees that are partially down already. I may try my hand at the chain saw to cut them into sections that will lay on the ground and rot. I suppose I could cut it into firewood, but I’m not that comfortable with the chain saw. However, if I find new confidence after cutting a few limbs down to size, then cutting it further into wood stove lengths would be very smart. They would have just the right amount of time to age dry before becoming fuel — because it’s going to take a couple more summers to get the chimneys fixed and a wood stove installed.

I’m also going to build my favorite weed suppressant in the jungle to smother the crap male sumac and whatever that ubiquitous thorny, fruitless plum thing is. I’m going to dump many mounds of compost all through the jungle and plant the mounds with pumpkin and winter squash. Lush growth of squash vines with big umbrella-like leaves is the best weed barrier I know. Johnny’s Select Seeds has many varieties that are resistant to powdery mildew which is the main problem with growing the actual plants in this climate. I don’t know if I’ll get any fruit on any of those plants because that’s dependent on squirrel predation and, to a lesser extant, pollination. Most of the winter squash plants that survive the droughts of June and the rot of July, crop fairly heavily, but most of the squashes are destroyed by rodents before I can get to them. Growing them out in the jungle as weed barrier will mean I won’t be paying as much attention to the fruit or lack thereof. If I get any fruit out of the plants, that will be frosting on the cake as far as I’m concerned. And if the squirrel population is, indeed, reduced, having dozens of plants out there might mean there is an increased probability of finding at least a few fruits that are more or less intact. Maybe.

It would be great if they all produce though. Not only do I use winter squash and have a decent place to store them already, but those autumn cucurbits are the one garden crop that is almost guaranteed to sell, no matter how much you put out on the roadside stand. People will buy everything orange or squashy from September 1st right through Thanksgiving. A few weeks of jack-o-lantern sales and you can pay for the seed from the whole growing season. So we’ll see… I’d just like to not have to buy pumpkins and butternut squash.

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As I was working, I had Eric Whitacre’s Home playing. This recording is a collaboration with the British choral ensemble Voces8. The music is breathtakingly beautiful. Here is a sample on YouTube. I have tickets to go hear Voces8 live in early March. This concert is definitely one of the highlights of my year.

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©Elizabeth Anker 2024