by Leslie Cox; Sunday; November 19, 2017

Besides being an exceptionally busy week…not the least of which was setting up our Christmas Village scenes…it has been a week of mixed bag weather. Bits of sunshine, lots of clouds, torrential rain, howling winds, and more than a couple of frosty mornings. Weather like this really encouraged us to start decorating the house for Christmas a little earlier than usual…if only for the “cheering up” factor. Typically, our daily Sadie walks provide us with our dose of happy. But who enjoys getting soaked to the skin on days like we have had this week?

Always one to be thankful for even small miracles…the little bit of sunshine this week was a delightful invitation to venture into the garden. If only to check on the overflows on the rain barrels! But I did force my way into the greenhouse…door swells in wet weather, not to mention the brick floor has heaved a bit just inside the door. I squeezed inside to check whether my lettuce and kale seedlings needed watering. Looked over all the pots stored in the greenhouse too. (It is always a good idea to make regular checks for any pests or diseases. Much easier to deal with a problem before it gets a solid toehold.)

Out in the vegetable garden, I checked on my lettuce seedlings under the floating row cover. They do not appear to have suffered any damage from the early snowfall and unusually low temperatures we had the first week of November. Whew! I was a tad worried.

For the winter garden, I grew ‘Merlot’, ‘Drunken Woman’, ‘Royal Red’, and ‘Salad Bowl’. I did sow some ‘Red Romaine’ seeds but they did not germinate. Too hot perhaps. It will be interesting to see how well these lettuce varieties survive under row cover in the garden versus in the unheated greenhouse. Romaine types are quite winter hardy apparently, so it bums me out none of mine germinated. But a quick internet search turned up some winter hardy comments about ‘Merlot’, which is a loose-leaf type. Gives me hope ‘Drunken Woman’. ‘Royal Red’, and ‘Salad Bowl’…also loose-leaf varieties…will take some low temperatures too.

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High winds for three out of the seven days has pretty much dropped the last of the leaves off the trees. Hopefully, the lawn mower has seen its last job for the year.

Between the deciduous trees and the herbaceous perennials in our landscape design, the garden has definitely morphed into its distinct skeleton-like winter look. Not my favourite, to be sure. Luckily, there are enough evergreens in the garden to carry us through until some of the perennials and bulbs start to pop up in late winter.

Another bright spot was the sight of four hummingbirds in the back garden this week. Four! Knew we had two in the front garden and one in the back…so not sure if the count is now four in the back and two in the front…or just four total in both gardens. I do know they are all Anna’s hummingbirds and one of them is a male. The other three are either females or immature males, or a combination of the two. One of them hit the front window last month but thankfully, not hard enough to do any serious damage.

 

Lay there stunned for a bit with one wing outstretched. When it did not make any move to stand up, I went outside and picked it up to make sure its wing was not damaged. After lying cradled in the palm of my hand for a minute or two, it rallied and flew up into the tree. Yeah!

Well, back to the Christmas lights. We have had well over 100 mm (4 inches) of rain in the last two days. Definitely need some cheerful colours to brighten the dark grey outlook.