What a difference a day makes! Yesterday we were outside in T-shirts prepping beds in sunny, 60-degree weather. Today, it’s barely getting above freezing and there’s already several inches of snow on the ground, with many more predicted to fall over the next 24 hours. And, I swear, this is what happens every year I’ve been running a farm. You get right up to mid-March when outdoor planting can begin in earnest and, invariably, a snow storm decides to pop into the picture. At this point, I more or less plan on it!
We did take a few steps to prepare for the snow. Yesterday, we prepped a bunch of beds that I planned to plant around March 23, but we then covered all of them with big plastic tarps to help protect them and keep them relatively dry during the snow, with the goal of still being able to plant in them as soon as possible. This morning, I also made the decision to take the row cover off of our onions so that the row cover, when weighed down with inches of snow, doesn’t crush the poor little onions underneath it. Onions are very cold-hardy and the snow itself will actually act as an insulator, so (knock on wood) the onions should be fine uncovered through the storm. Some people actually say it’s good for onions to be in the ground before the last winter storm, hence the term “onion snow”. Either way, here’s hoping it’s our last big snow of the year!
Comments
Barbara Grogan
March 20, 2018Wow! Good luck to those hardy little onions. What a beautiful scene. I’m thinking of this as a good omen!
Two Feet in the Dirt
March 21, 2018Yeah, we’re trying to look at all this snow in a positive light, too… It’s definitely going to be a bit longer before anything else gets planted outside, though. I think we’ve got about a foot of snow out there at this point!
lynn b
March 21, 2018Interesting about the onions. Never knew about “onion snow” before. This snow does seem somewhat like a
blanket so hope for the best. I guess it helps to expect this type of weather event but its still a pain. I do
remember things of this sort when I was planting my lettuce mid March. It did seem that every year it would
either snow or rain, making the soil way too wet to plant in.