Not quite The Donner Party

That storm tore thru here pretty good last night. Prob about 2 feet of snow, but not the worst I've ever seen. Myabe it's a perspective thing....I mean, when your small everything looks pretty big to you. So as the Blizzard of '78 goes I just remember alot more snow....anway Gardening postponed.

UPS delivered some Grow Lights set up and heating mats to my brother's for me. If they plow the roads up I'll try n get over there and get them today... squash nd watermelon seeds too...get back to that a lil later.

 

Garden was here a minute ago....

My PVC Winter

As previously stated, I'm kinda new to gardening, and learning as I go. I thing I know to be true is that I like starting from seed. To me buying seedlings i like getting a ride for the 1st half of a Marathon

 

( Rosie Ruiz 1980 )

 

      Last year I overplanted, and underprotected my garden. Only thru error do we truly learn, I believe.  I got a couple rabbits in my yard, and Murray the hedgehog lives out back under the woodpiles. Those two critters desimated my squash last year. Cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, basil - they skipped 'em all.... but cleaned out my Butternut Squash leaves without mercy.

      So I find myself thinking this winter about how to better grow squash. I mean I'm limited on space so geting the long vining, Winter Squash out of the way would be a bonus...I gotta go vertical is what I'm coming up with. I'm designing...thinking,....redesigning....and here is what I come up with ( 90 % of the final product ) 

 

 I'm going with small Squash. Acorn, Sweet Potato and Kuri. Gonna put a net trellis over this setup and grow out of 5 gallon buckets. I'm figuring on about 90 sq feet of space for 5 Squash plants. So measured and cut I spent about $25.00 on a 7ft high 5ft wide and 8ft long arbor. Krylon makes a paint called FUSION - for painting plastics. You and I both know that an all white PVC would look like shit. I painted all the connectors and T's black....and here is a pic of the roof to my trellis. Now just waiting for the Spring.

 

  I also build a 8ft x 13ft Cucumber trellis....but that one I will assemble later in April/May...see ya on the other side of this storm.

Thinking "Inside the Box"

I'm new to this so please bear with me. It's snowing out a lil now ( expecting 24 to 30 inches today/tonight), and I find myself thinking about my garden. I've only been doing this for about 3 years but I look foward to what I will grow in the Spring. I have one raised bed...approx 5' by 16' and find myself thinking about what I can fit "Inside the Box". But the last lil snowstorm we had my plow guy slammed it and broke my raised bed. At first I was a lil pissed .......but hey -UPGRADE! I can't upgrade a ton (as I am a renter and my LL is cool with what I got), but if I add about 6  inches I can fit another whole row of plants. This is what I look at on the daily, and wait for Spring to come. But by this time tommorow she'll be under 2 to 3 feet of snow...and the wait goes on.