Thanksgiving Gardening

We have been loving the snow recently. We've got over a foot on the ground and may get up to another foot in the next couple days! Snowboarding season is finally on the horizon!


Obviously we're done tinkering in the garden for a few months at least. We were able to spread a few truckloads of manure and clear out the majority of the beds. We've got a bit of pruning to do this spring, otherwise the beds will be ready to go once the snow melts.


After some recent days of -12 temperatures everything in the greenhouse froze. There is a chance that the lettuce will thaw and perk up, but we might just begin to pick frozen salads.


In the solarium the tomatoes are doing pretty good. They're a bit more anemic looking despite fertilizing them regularly. I think it is the short day light that is doing that.


Despite the low light, they continue to flower and slowly fruit! The solarium temperatures are very similar to our summers here. During the coldest nights it gets down to about 40-45 in here and the daytime temperatures with or without a fire going range from 65-90! Pretty good temperatures to keep growing tomatoes. Someday we might supplement in here with artificial light, but we're currently trying to work with what we've got.


The citrus trees are growing steadily. They have been slowly adding more and more leaves since their initial shock of being planted and then quickly transplanted again. They all (meyer lemon, lime and mandarinquat) have fruit and are ever bearing.


The mandarinquat has several fruits that are ripening.


The lime tree just set it's second generation of fruit.


We've also got potted peppers in the solarium that are doing well. I think we'll have to pick these and stuff them with some sort of home-made venison sausage mixture.


The jalapenos are doing wonderful despite the low daylight. These must be pretty hot right now!



Despite living in Montana, our unique house allows us to try to garden year round. In one of our spare bedrooms there are some coreopsis and chrysanthemum cuttings that I started in the fall. Pretty soon I'll move these out to the solarium where I'll let them grow until spring. These will be going in the decorative bed in front of the house.