Last winter, we had unusually warm weather.
It never got below 14°F, which was wonderful.
In addition, it only got that low once. Just once!
In our 7a zone in TN, that’s rather incredible.
This fall? Well, I’m not so sure things are looking so great.
Winter? I’m getting rather concerned about.
I mean, not many of us actually enjoy winter, do we?
There are some exceptional views, I’ll admit.
But scenes like the one below simply can’t convince me to let go of my winter blues.
The Early Death of Our Fall Garden: Why I’ll Be Picking Way Too Early
The first frost date for our area is October 20th.
Generally, we see our first hard freeze at the end of October.
This was fairly accurate; as it stands, we have had roughly 5 or 6 frosts, and 3 or so hard freezes.
It’s already been quite frequent!
However, we’re expecting a dip to 13°F in the coming days- something that a lot of these crops won’t withstand without cover.
As a matter of fact, that 13°F will be accompanied by a day that doesn’t get above freezing, and surrounded by nights dropping to the lower 20’s.
Thus, this garden is going to die without protection. With the current damage they’ve already sustained, I’m not going to protect them from the coming weather.
This is the point in time that herb beds should be winterized for the incoming cold weather, just as the perennial plants are going dormant for the year.
I purchased the Kale and Turnips at an incredibly low clearance price at our local Co-Op; I only paid roughly $2.50 per bag, which each contain around 1 ounce of seed. I definitely didn’t lose much here!
Instead, I’m just going to harvest the delicious baby greens for a wonderful salad.
It’s not such a big loss, after all!
Whatever’s left, I can simply toss into the chicken run.
The chickens have also received some winterization, as their coop was not wind proof.
Inside of my coop, I stapled up collected feed bags to the inside walls, which are made up of dog ears.
Yes! I essentially built a coop out of fencing planks!
The only pitfall was the shrinking and spacing; the wind was horrendous with a chill (but beneficial during summertime.)
The feed bags have sealed out the wind, and keep out excessive moisture; it’s an excellent frugal up-cycle project!
It’ll help me in keeping my chickens warm during winter weather.
Oh and, I must say: the fleabane looks gorgeous covered in frost!
The Weather Is Unpredictable: Homesteaders Have to Work Around It
If the plants were larger, some of them would have been able to withstand the dip.
It’s always possible that some of my kale could pull through these low temperatures.
However, I’m definitely not expecting it.
I should have planted a little earlier; but I didn’t want bitter greens, and I didn’t want to face bolting.
Spring came very early here; winter was very, very mild (and quite warm at times.)
Thus, I planted a little later in anticipation of a warmer fall/winter (the winter before was quite mild as well.)
Was that a mistake? Somewhat.
The bigger mistake? Not covering the garden with a high tunnel.
However, I didn’t have plans for the latter.
(Let me distract you with more fleabane, I love spamming ya’ll with pictures…)
A High Tunnel with Cats… Well…
I knew it would get shredded by the newer barn kittens, and I did not have time to place electric wire to protect the garden plastic from the kitties.
You see, that’s the fun with barn cats.
With every step you take on the homestead, you have to think about the kitty cat antics they’re going to stick you with.
Greenhouse or high tunnel? Enjoy the slices in plastic, or collapsed hoops.
Freshly planted pot? Here’s a little kitty poop.
Just put in some new trees? Simply must be a place to scale when hyped up and running for dear life.
Brand new deck or coop? Let me just claw on that, all day, every day….
Cats are about as difficult to plan around as goats.
If you have goats AND cats, then we’re definitely on the same page here.
These are the things that other homestead blogs just don’t tell you about.
This is the reality of homesteading!
So What’s My Next Mission, Now That Fall Is Here?
Well, strawberry plants, of course!
My strawberries are constantly spreading like wildfire.
Now that fall is upon us, it’s yet again time to transplant the strawberry runners.
I’ll also be conducting a small experiment; I’d like to plant a ton of strawberries next spring in containers, to help minimize berry losses due to slugs.
However, I don’t want to plant them just yet.
Instead, I’ll be using an interesting method to store the smaller bare root plants indoors for the winter, which I’m hoping will prove to be successful.
I will likely dig these plants up at the end of November or early December, when I begin remodeling beds and ripping old ones out.
There are different things you can do with your strawberry plants during winter, and generally I just leave them be or transplant.
I want to try something new.
Oh And… There’s One More Fun Thing We’re Doing…
I recently obtained some Tiny Tim tomatoes in a recent trade.
Currently, they are in my kitchen, hopefully germinating.
We will be growing these incredibly small tomato plants on our counter tops, in hopes of harvesting lots of tiny snacking tomatoes all winter long.
I’m very excited to add this micro dwarf to my ever-expanding tomato collection, which will surpass 70 varieties well before spring; I’d like to collect 100+ varieties for a substantial tomato collection.
That’s all for today, folks!
