That Time Of Year Again

seed catalogs

With March beginning near the end of this week, has come the time when I begin deciding what to plant. Seed catalogs usually begin arriving around Thanksgiving but continue on through the winter. It’s fun to look at them but I really can’t get into the mood for planting until the days have grown noticeably longer and the weather begins to warm.

This past winter has been light on snow and mild (relatively speaking) in temperature. Decades ago it was routine to see below zero Fahrenheit temperatures often days at a time. Cold snaps of this sort could be counted on to show up at least twice, if not more, at some point during the winter, usually in January or February.

Thermometer showing below zero Fahrenheit

Not this winter. While it came close to zero degrees Fahrenheit several times, the sub-zero temperatures have been strangely absent. For northern New Hampshire this is beyond unusual. Officially we’re at Zone 4b on the USDA hardiness zone map as it currently exists. But unless we get some seriously frigid temperatures over the next two or three weeks, this winter’s temperatures have suddenly bumped my area up to a zone 6. This may just be an unusual winter but it makes it hard to plan when to plant and what conditions I am likely to expect. That’s always hard anyways but these wild oscillations really play havoc with any gardening plans.

Still, I’ll go with the old standbys which I like, such as potatoes, peas and carrots. Those tend to be pretty reliable. I’ve bought Swiss Chard seeds, something I’ve always had difficulty growing, but hope springs eternal. Light snow this winter may very well mean a dry summer, so the drip hose will be coming out, especially if I plant potatoes and carrots as well as wax beans, another favorite.

I also bought a seed packet of Pinwheel Marigolds this past week and got a good laugh when I read the back of the packet.

seed packet with typo

If they grow the way it says, I will have to call my brother over with his chainsaw to cut a few blossoms for me. Not sure what I’ll do for the vase.

Have a happy Saint Patrick’s Day and a productive March.

Saint Patrick's Day cat

February Holidays

At the beginning of each month I use Open Office to create a calendar day for that month which gets stuck on the fridge. The Drawing program is the best one for building a month. I insert a picture, usually a humorous one, near the top, then using the Insert Table function, I create a table for putting in the days and weeks of the month.

Calendar page for January

I then mark in some holidays of the month while leaving other days open so I can note appointments and other events on them.

For February, there’s Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day. Groundhog’s Day (February 2nd) is an odd holiday which we inherited from the Pennsylvania Germans who emigrated here back in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The notion was that if the groundhog (we call them woodchucks here on the US east coast) comes out of his burrow and spots his shadow on this day he will return to his hole to hibernate another six weeks, while no shadow meant an early spring. The fact that there are precisely six weeks between February 2 and the Spring Equinox, irregardless of whether or not the weather is clear doesn’t seem to matter. That is apparently beside the point. It’s an excuse for a small group of men to dress up in formal wear and drag out some poor woodchuck and hold him up the waiting cameras.

Groundhog Day

February 2nd is also known as Candlemas, a Christian feast day celebrating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple purportedly 40 days after his birth. It is also called Imbolc or Saint Bridget’s Day although traditionally that is actually celebrated the day before. The origins of Imbolc are a little more uncertain than Candlemas but it seems to go back to early Medieval times.

February 14th is Valentine’s Day, also a Christian holiday commemorating the martyrdom of Saint Valentine. There were apparently several men named Valentine, dating back to late Roman times. The custom of giving flowers, sweets and other gifts seems to have originated in Britain. In Slovenia Saint Valentine was the patron of spring, good health as well as of beekeepers and pilgrims. This sounds far more benign than the current commercialized bacchanalia of chocolates that cram store shelves around this time, soon to be displaced by the avalanche of sugar poured out in celebration of Easter and Mother’s Day. Small wonder we’re all turning into diabetics.

Valentine's Day Heart

There are a few lesser holidays such as President’s Day, celebrated on the third Monday of the month. If you do a Google seach, you’ll discover a plethora of holidays for each day of February: Carrot Cake Day, National Homemade Soup Day, National Peppermint Patty Day and so forth. Who comes up with these and more importantly why?

I prefer to keep it simple. Celebrate the birth of Saint Bridget, light a candle to her. Celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day the Slovenic way with perhaps little displays honoring good health, the spring to come and yes even beekeepers everywhere. Don’t forget to eat a bit of chocolate in their honor.

Happy Curmudgeon’s Day!

Great grandmother Labonte

New Years Eve 2023

Well, another year has come and nearly gone. When I look out into the front yard this is the view I have.

View of front yard December 30 2023

The total lack of snow is quite notable. While we have had snowless Christmas’s before, they were few and far between back when I was young. It was more customary to have at least five inches of snow on the ground, if not more, by the beginning of the New Year. Now it seems to be more like every other year. Thanks to climate warming, this is the new norm.

The implications for gardening are hard to measure. With insufficient snow pack, some plants cannot make it through the winter should there be a sudden severe cold snap. Weed and insect pests which might have died from the cold can now make it through to spring. All this requires adjustment on my part when planning a garden. What will do best come summer? What soil amendments will be needed? How heavy or light will the rain be? This past year was quite wet, a change from the semi-drought conditions of the past decade. But these are questions that have always come up no matter what climate change has done or not done.

Many months lie between now and spring allowing me to peruse the latest batch of seed catalogs and mull over what to try in 2024.

Have a happy New Years!

New Year's Eve

November Notes 2023

November seems to have run its course very quickly. The first few snowfalls have whitened the landscape, though mild weather still returns often enough to melt it away. Thanksgiving has come and gone. Christmas now looms. A fresh coating of light snow from some unsettled weather this past weekend gives the lawn outside the appearance of winter, even though technically it’s still late fall and not all of the leaves have gotten raked up.

A morning walk several weeks ago turned up this interesting discovery.

sapsucker holes

A fallen branch from an old beech tree shows a series of holes drilled into the bark. This is the work of a type of woodpecker called a sapsucker. In New Hampshire, it’s the yellow-bellied sapsucker which abounds.

yellow-bellied sapsucker woodpecker

Like other woodpeckers, it feeds on insects, berries and fruits, but it derives its name from its habit of drilling neat lines of holes in live trees and feeding on the sap that oozes out. Healthy trees can tolerate the minor damage caused by the birds, though sickly ones may eventually succumb if the damage is significant enough. For the most part, these little holes, or sapwells as they are sometimes called, can serve a beneficial purpose. Other birds, insects and small mammals like squirrels will also feed on the oozing sap, exploiting an important food source.

woodpecker hole

The sapsucker nests in cavities they excavate in tree trunks. Once the nestlings are raised, other birds such as swallows and bluebirds will make use of the ready made holes for their own young.

Because of these modest but helpful benefits, sapsuckers are regarded as a keystone species in the northeastern woods of North America. If you’re interested in seeing these small birds, they will frequent bird feeders and appeciate suet placed out for them. So keep an eye peeled for them this winter.

Have a happy holiday season.

The Remains of the Season

Fall foliage is past peak and either turned brown or fallen. The first few snow flakes of the coming winter got spat out of a dreary raw rainy sky yesterday along with a few pellets of sleet. Halloween and November are on the doorstep. Plenty of seasonal lawn ornaments, some cute, some ghoulish.

Halloween lawn decoration, giant skeleton

Outdoor Halloween decoration

Already plenty of leaves to be raked up with more to come.

Fallen leaves in driveway

While there’s been no frost or freeze yet, the weather has been raw enough so that growing season has pretty much ended, except for the occasional fungi bursting out of the ground.

Fall mushrooms

I find it hard to think of it as still fall, with the first day of winter still over a month away. Rather it seems more a curious pause between fall and winter. The brilliant colors of autumn have vanished but the snows of winter have yet to collect on the ground. This little segment of the year ought to have a name of its own. Possibly Ember Days, which in Christian calenders marked a period of time following the change of the seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) when fasting and prayer were done. There are a number of different types of celebrations done at this time of year, honoring the summer and the bountiful crops (if any) it produced, allowing food to be put up for the winter to come.

Given what a short period of time it is (roughly end of October to Thanksgiving, or whenever the snow begins falling in earnest) perhaps it might best be named the Quiet Time. A time for taking stock of the past year and begin preparing for the year yet to come. A time for peacefully appreciating what we have, rather than going berserk in the wild consumer bacchanalias that Thanksgiving and Christmas have been turned into.

medieval family

Whatever it may be called, enjoy and have a happy season.