Good morning, and Happy New Year! Welcome to New Year's Morning Garden Blogging.
Denver finally got a blast of real winter weather to bring in the New Year. Thursday the temperature plunged precipitously — we started the day at 30°, but within a few hours the temperature dropped and we ended the day in the single digits. The weather for New Year's Eve remained cold, with a high of only 9°; this morning the low is 4°; that's better than the /-5° which was forecast.
But, along with temperatures dropping on Thursday, something else fell — SNOW!
Now, it was forecast that we'd be getting 6" to 10" of snow and we only got about 2.5" — bringing our total snow for the season to a whopping 4". We usually have had more than 2 feet of snow by the end of December.
Luckily La Niña years tend to bring a lot of snow to the mountains, so the snowpack, from which 2011's water supply will come, is at 130% of normal. Better than ten years ago when no one, mountains or plains, had any moisture.
January in Denver tends to be dry and cold, so we likely won't be seeing much more moisture in the coming weeks. Our current cold snap is expected to break today and by tomorrow we'll be back into the 40s. However, overnight lows in the teens and single digits are the January norm, and we'll likely see at least one more arctic blast before the month is up.
So January is a time of dreaming of the spring to come. The seed catalogs are coming quick and thick — so many that, after a cursory glance, I toss out 99% of those from companies I've not ordered from before.
I'll finish packing up Christmas today (the tree is down; I just need to get the ornaments properly stowed and the rest of the hoo-haws gathered). After that's done, I need to inventory what seeds I still have from last year, and decide what to order for the coming season. I always put in an order to Pinetree, as it's the only company that stocks Sugar Lace snap peas — my favorite variety. Last year's experiment of planting snap peas along the edge of my front flower beds was a grand success; neighbors with small children especially liked that their little ones could pick fresh peas. However, everyone was so polite about not over-picking a lot of the peas were wasted, so this year I'll harvest from the front beds, too; last year I left all the peas for others.
I think I'll be able to plant out there a lot earlier than I do in the veggie patch; the front beds warm up much more quickly and I don't have to prep the whole area before being able to plant. Who knows — perhaps I'll be able to extend pea season by two or three weeks by getting an earlier crop in out front, and a later crop in the back.
I'll also have to grow kohlrabi this year. I hadn't planted any for several years, and of the old seed I threw out in the ground last year only one kohlrabi made it. However, Younger Son decided that kohlrabi was a marvelous snack, and gawd knows I'm not one to deny a kid fresh raw vegetables. Believe it or not, the best kohlrabi I've found is kossack kohlrabi — a giant hybrid that just refuses to get woody.
If I can figure out a place to put them, the Mister would really, really like to try growing honeydew melons. Decisions, decisions — so many wants, so little garden space.
That's what's happening here. What's going on in your gardens?