Mid-December 2016, and the coldest night we have seen so far was a chilly -8 degrees Fahrenheit - today, the sunny daytime temperature is hovering around 22 degrees. Our daily activities include refilling woodstoves, baking cookies, and catching up on correspondence, movies, and dinners with friends and neighbors. We all had a busy summer, and now, it's time to rest, recharge, and plan for the 2017 Best Ever Garden!
Well, maybe we'll check out the pile of seed catalogs in January: on every catalog page each plant and veggie is so beautifully photographed and the plant descriptions are just so over the top, flowery, and embellished – and the new varieties sound so delicious, productive, and easy to grow! We gardeners are such suckers...and we love it, and apparently we never learn 😁.
Pat and I purposely left some carrots, kale, broccoli, and chard plants to overwinter in the garden - we want to see if the plants will survive with an insulating cover of snow, into next spring.
Finally, those playful plant plot plowers, the Master Gardeners of Pend Oreille County, are looking for a fresh crop of gardeners willing to join them. Master Gardeners help our community by sharing, showing, and teaching valuable lessons in growing food for ourselves, our families, and our neighbors and friends. If you are interested in becoming a Master Gardener, you can call the Pend Oreille County/Washington State University Extension Office in Newport at 509-447-6453 – ask for Dixie Chichester.
That's it for this year - stay warm, and out of the ditch.
Jim
