This past week has delivered us about a foot and a half of snow, which has been great for sledding and snowshoeing (my favorite ways to stay happy in the winter). However, it hasn't been very great for shoveling. Specifically, we've been working to keep the greenhouse clear.
If too much snow builds up on the top or the sides of the greenhouse, it could collapse. We built our greenhouse with a Gothic-style roof-line, which helps it shed snow. So far, that has worked very well, and we've only had to clear the top off once. But all that shed snow from the roof slides right down the sides. After our big storm last weekend, the snowbanks on the sides of the greenhouse went almost up to the beginning of the roof-line - way too high and getting dangerous. From the inside, you could see the plastic being pressed in by the weight of the snow.
So our friend Douglas - who will be working on the farm with us this summer - and I spent the better part of a day earlier this week digging out the greenhouse. We have a snowblower attachment on our walk-behind BCS tractor (which I'll tell you more about soon), but the snow was too deep and the BCS just got stuck. In fact, I spent far longer than I care to remember trying to get the poor machine out of the snowbank I'd driven it into.
So that left us with a shovel and our own strength. Fortunately, it had been a very light, dry snow, so even though it had piled up higher than I am tall, it wasn't too hard to shovel. Even still, I was sore for three days afterwards.
The carrots we seeded back in early December haven't done anything yet. That isn't much of a surprise - it's been very cold! I'm thinking that they'll sprout sometime in March or so, when temperatures are likely to be a little more forgiving. I don't really know, though - it's an experiment! I am, however, very excited to see how it turns out.
If too much snow builds up on the top or the sides of the greenhouse, it could collapse. We built our greenhouse with a Gothic-style roof-line, which helps it shed snow. So far, that has worked very well, and we've only had to clear the top off once. But all that shed snow from the roof slides right down the sides. After our big storm last weekend, the snowbanks on the sides of the greenhouse went almost up to the beginning of the roof-line - way too high and getting dangerous. From the inside, you could see the plastic being pressed in by the weight of the snow.
So our friend Douglas - who will be working on the farm with us this summer - and I spent the better part of a day earlier this week digging out the greenhouse. We have a snowblower attachment on our walk-behind BCS tractor (which I'll tell you more about soon), but the snow was too deep and the BCS just got stuck. In fact, I spent far longer than I care to remember trying to get the poor machine out of the snowbank I'd driven it into.
So that left us with a shovel and our own strength. Fortunately, it had been a very light, dry snow, so even though it had piled up higher than I am tall, it wasn't too hard to shovel. Even still, I was sore for three days afterwards.
The carrots we seeded back in early December haven't done anything yet. That isn't much of a surprise - it's been very cold! I'm thinking that they'll sprout sometime in March or so, when temperatures are likely to be a little more forgiving. I don't really know, though - it's an experiment! I am, however, very excited to see how it turns out.
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