In the house, under a window, that is.
Now all we need is for the snow to stop falling–and to figure out exactly how to coax productive plants out of the ground. We’ve had more snow this March than we did January and February put together. We’re getting about three inches a day; fortunately the melting seems to keep up with it.
Our soil is gravelly. It brings forth abundantly after its fashion: Grand fir, Doug fir, lodgepole pine, white pine, tamarack, and mountain maple; and, depending on soil, red cedar, Ponderosa, birch, and aspen. That’s just the big stuff that I can identify (excluding grasses, shrubs, ferns, fungi, etc). I’m still learning to identify my photosynthesizing neighbors. Anyway, last spring I banged together five 3′x10′ planting boxes out of old scrap lumber I got from our branch president. (That is, our local ecclesiastical leader, a very helpful guy.) Then our neighbor brought his tractor over and scooped a bunch of mountain soil into our planting boxes. Then we planted seeds in it.
And very little happened. Not only did last year’s snow not melt until May, but our mountain faces northeast and we get a cool breeze down it every evening. I think it stunted the plants. Plus the soil doesn’t seem very amenable to growing things besides plants on the above list. We tried dumping duck water on our raised beds, and the sudden abundance of nutrients may have shocked our struggling plants. The bean plants did fabulously, and our cucumbers, strangely, produced more than any other set we’ve tried. But everything else was stunted. Tomatoes were a joke. Corn plants produced exactly nine ears total. Even our strawberries were anemic.
So this year we’ll try again. We’ll put hoops and fabric over our plants to keep them warmer. We’ll till into the soil the wood shavings that the ducks have been ducking on all winter in their shoop. That should help retain water in this gravelly soil. Plus, I’ll be getting a used 55-gallon drum one of these days which I can build into a compost turner, and compost will help. Our ducks are finicky and won’t eat non-leafy kitchen scraps, so those have been going into the trash which we must haul weekly to the dump. We’ll turn it into compost instead, and see if that helps the garden.
I just made a post over at my blog about my three favorite gardening books, which I highly recommend.Gardening can be as simple or complex as you make it–the trick is in making a home for your plants that is as close to their natural habitat as possible. (Which means, if you want tomatoes, you’ll need to have some type of greenhouse, as a north-eastern slope in your neck of the woods is nearly as far from Mexico as you can get . . . )One last caution: don’t work in the wood shavings unless they’re well-composted. Some types of wood release high concentrations of something-or-others that can severely stunt or kill garden plants. (Yes, that’s a technical term. ;o) Once it’s broken down, there’s no problem. It’s in the breaking down that trouble starts.If you want a garden that will really take off, you need a three-bin composting setup, as really good compost takes about three years. You can have it hauled in and work it into your existing soil, or you can fill your beds entirely with new topsoil and compost. Which, if you really want to be able to supplement your diet in a meaningful way, would be your best option. Plants are only, with few exceptions such as alfalfa and mullein, as good as the soil they’re grown in. You can find loads of really good info at http://www.GardenWeb.com — they have forums on Northern Gardening, extending the season, starting seeds indoors, winter sowing (planting seeds outside in winter to come up in Spring), and tons more. There are state-specific forums, and there used to be a Rocky Mountain Gardening forum. Tons of great info, and lots of activity.Best of luck, and I’m really enjoying reading!(Reposted to remove references to where you live. A thousand pardons . . . it’s late, and I’ve got mother fog something fierce.)