This morning, I was finally able to skirt around the edges with shallower snow, to get to where the main garden area is finally thawing out.

You can really tell how the shadows pass, by how much or how little snow there is! The bed that’s half planted with garlic is now fully clear of snow, and each bed further west has more and more snow on it.

I checked the soil under the wood chips mulching the high raised bed, and the soil there seems completely thawed. I also lifted up the straw mulch over the garlic, and immediately found an earthworm! Still, it’ll be a while before we can plant anywhere here.

In the fall, I hope to have enough of the dead trees in the spruce grove cut down and cut to size that we can build more high raised beds to replace the low ones.

Behind where I’m standing to take this photo is where we had a squash hill for the Crespo squash, and where we planted the Mountain Morado corn. The squash hill is surrounded by snow, and half the old corn block is still under snow.

It’s quite different at the other end.

The squash tunnel is looking a bit wonky! We should get one more year of of the tunnel and trellises, and then we’ll move things closer to the house. In the background is where we will be planting the berry shrubs that will be shipped in time for transplanting in our growing zone. The space between the tunnel and the trellises will be planted again, as will the rows that had bush beans last year. We will also start planting more in the wide open space on the right, which extends to the main garden area, as well as part of the area where I am standing. A lot of squash and melons were be planted in these wide open spaces. We’ll be putting temporary deer fencing around as much of the old garden area as we can, this year, along with other measures to try and protect our garden beds from various smaller critters.

Next year, if things go as planned, where the pea trellises are, and the rows we’d previously planted beans in, will have fruit or nut trees planted. We might get one more year out of the squash tunnel before that gets taken out, too. If all goes well, by then we’ll have enough permanent high and low raised beds and be able to build permanent tunnels and trellises on them.

Hopefully, we will have a good growing year, and fewer hungry critters to fight off!

The Re-Farmer