The usual Monday photo. Last week there was snow and all the rounds of wood were standing on end
A full week to go until the winter solstice and the start of winter at least by the position of the earth in it’s annual orbit of the sun. It is of course only in the northern hemisphere that this occurs as the opposite happens south of the equator where December 21 will be the start of summer. So at 10:03 in the morning the winter solstice officially occurs and the length of daylight hours on the 22nd will be longer … but imperceptibly so and likewise imperceptibly slow for another few days. The long slow climb to spring at the vernal equinox will have begun.
Proof of above freezing temperatures is the puddle found by the ducks. No ice here
The peacock with his train of feathers growing nicely but still a long way from finished. He seems perfectly happy with this weather too.
This past week’s weather was alright with the temperature being a little warmer and only one day of any amount of rain. The laneway got more muddy but was still navigable. Water hose is still laid out to supply water to the chickens, ducks, horses and the cows and worked well except for a couple of couple of days when it was frozen the whole day. We really should roll it all up and put it away but it is a lot easier to turn on the hose than to carry buckets and maybe it will warm a little again. The amount of water that the animals are using now is really not that much now though.
The herd of ducks hurrying along to somewhere.
The colours of ducks are quite intriguing.
We planted another small amount of our garlic, about 15 feet. This is a trial. We are wanting to compare the growth of the garlic that is planted in different ways, specifically if the cloves are not planted upright. It is a small trial but hopefully still useful. There are three rows one foot apart divided into three parts. In each part of each row were planted 10 cloves of garlic. One planting was the control, 10 cloves planted upright, the planting was with the cloves laid on their side and the third was with the cloves planted completely upside down. We already have observed that the garlic cloves will grow no matter how they are oriented in the soil but we don’t actually know how well they will grow and if the orientation when planted will affect size and quality. Hopefully we will get some useful results. It may be though that the information we might glean from this trial will not be definitive, we may have to repeat it next fall with a greater number in the planting. No results until we do our first observations in the spring when the garlic leaves start to poke out of the ground. We really should do more formal trials for vegetables where we are looking for changes to various outcomes. We also planted a very few cloves of another garlic variety to see what it is like. It is very different from all the other varieties that we pant and we only planted about 30 cloves. This is called Chinese garlic, was purchased in a grocery store and we think it does come from China. It will be interesting to see how this grows under our conditions.
The tall wood stake marks the end of the three rows and the white stakes divide up the three rowed garlic bed into three parts with the 4th part being the Chinese garlic.
The chickens and ducks really are more comfortable with this weather though the ducks often seem to be fine with cold and blowing snow. The ducks will be out in all manner of weather, the sort that has chickens staying entirely inside. Some things in the garden are still growing or at least still living. Growth has stopped or renews only slightly with warm and sunny days.
The chard is still perfectly fine to use if large enough leaves can still be found.
The Chinese cabbage is still good even when cut from beneath the snow.
The flavour of these very small pointy cabbage, a variety called Early Jersey Wakefield, has I think, improved since frosts.
The kale plants are every small too and like the cabbage the leaves now have an improved flavour.
Devon Acres Organic Farm 