Cold weather with no snow cover

So far this winter we've had some cold temperatures and only sporadic snow cover. Will be interesting to see how the grass fares next year, and the garlic too which has sprouted when it was warmer.

Garlic sprouted! Uh oh!

Noticed today that all of the garlic along the north wall has sprouted, several inches high!

Pulled the row cover off the kitchen door garlic bed -- some has sprouted there too, but less so.

Harvested beets, carrots, and fall-planted potatoes

Soooooo many beets, nice harvest.

Carrots once again are all small, and many are hairy.  Not particularly appealing, but, edible.

Fall-planted potatoes provided a nice little harvest actually!  2.5 pounds of baby potatoes. Not bad considering they were planted on August 8th and 22nd.

Yup, first frost has come and gone

Tuberous begonia is completely kaput now, whereas it was still standing upright a few days ago. I think that plant is my best judge, as the zinnias are clearly unhappy/dying but didn't droop over. Kept the tuber of course.

First frost, sort of?

I guess we've had our first frost? The volunteer ground cherry by the gate, which looked great all along, still has integrity in the stems but the leaves are all curling in and dying. The zinnias are still standing in the yard and out front, but not looking very happy at all. So maybe not the full deep killing frost yet, but a frost?

Sowed garlic: Metechi

Sowed garlic:  Metechi

- 20 big huge beautiful cloves of Metechi garlic (bought from Ritchie's) sown in kitchen door patch, north of meter.  ~3" deep, ~6" between.  Covered with a good dose of shredded leaves.  Then covered that with row cover (weighted down with stones etc.) just to keep the squirrels out for a while.  Will remove the row cover before winter.

- 16 smallest cloves of Metechi garlic sown in the usual garlic bed along the north wall.  So, the north wall bed is full all the way from my house to the big red rock.

(This will be the only type of garlic I sow this year.)

D'oh: Bird species update

It turns out the LBBs I thought were a tan morph of some kind of sparrow are actually immature white crowned sparrows. And, score! I was right about the song sparrow guess. (Confirmed with a post on a bird identification group)

Chickadees!!!

Finally saw black capped chickadees in my backyard! There are at least two as I them there at the same time. But they kept taking one thing and then flying away, and one would come back, grab a sunflower and fly away, etc. They ate mostly from the wire mesh sunflowers, with some mild interest in the mixed seed next to it. Anyway, so happy they've finally discovered my yard; hope they'll come back for more!

Plants still alive! Car windows covered in frost, but plants didn't get hit!

Cold night last night, but all the tenders are still standing!

Unidentified brown stripey birds = song sparrows?

Unidentified brown bird ate zinnia seeds from flowerhead

Cool! (The tall zinnias by the compost bin.)

Unidentified small birds this morning -- grayish non-striped

A small handful of these birds were hopping around on the patio stones next to the fence this morning. I was in a hurry so didn't have a chance to really examine them and look them up, but I remember them being solid coloured greyish with lighter underside I think, otherwise similar in size and shape to the sparrows.  Junco popped in my head but only because the word has been popping up this fall, not that I know anything about juncos.  They were gone when I got back and didn't come back the rest of the day.

Bluejays on fence but I accidentally scared them away :(

Dang, just as I stepped out into the yard, I saw two blujays fly away -- they had been sitting on the fence. No doubt eyeing the bird cake...  I hope they'll forgive me and come back another time to check it out.

Reference: Common birdfeeder birds

https://feederwatch.org/learn/common-feeder-birds/?__hstc=75100365.e7c28484cb2fa7fb3a868df582058965.1600727523060.1600727523060.1601754698524.2&__hssc=75100365.1.1601754698524&__hsfp=1816707892#_ga=2.60479853.1535247250.1601754698-529739934.1600727519

Click the red button "View Bird List", to see page full of photos of the various common species.  Click on photo for more info.

White crowned sparrow; and, 2 squirrels and a chipmunk

Three birds in the yard at the same today, eating/hopping along on the ground (never went up on the birdfeeder).  One was for sure a white crowned sparrow:  striking black/white hat, no yellow spots on head, greyish chest wrapping around to the back, brown stripey wings, brown lower back, long tail.  At least one of the other birds there at the same time was a mottled brown bird, google says females look the same as males, so maybe the mottled one was a juvile?

White crowned sparrow:  https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-crowned_Sparrow/overview

 

Two squirrels in the yard today!  Surely no coincidence that today's the first day I made some vegetarian cake and put it in the cage feeder.  Some crumbled to the ground which is where the squirrels were eating.  The chipmunk seemed mildly interested in the cake in the cage but didn't try hard to eat it, instead went to the seed feeder.

Two immature butternuts harvested (vines dead); one immature butternut still on vine

I wonder if these two harvested immature squash will ripen. One is well on the way but definitely not there yet; the other is very green with just a touch of tan at the stem.

White throated sparrow, tan-crowned (/aka tan-striped)

Finally had a chance to i.d. one of these mottled brown birds in my yard, thanks to the binoculars and thanks to the bird posing on the feeder for a few minutes. This one must be a White throated sparrow, tan-crowned (/aka tan-striped). I noted the white throat, brown(/gray?) underside and body, and stripes on the head alternating black and a browny colour.

Cold nights, down to ~0-1! So far no frost.

Asparagus near compost bin also now infested with aphids

Oh well. I hereby declare that next year I'm going to eat whatever I can, before all three patches are permanently kaput.

Dud baby winter squashes are delicious as fried squash fingers

Dang, I should have started doing this sooner! The dud baby winter squashes (butternut and cushaw) that never took off were delicious as fried squash fingers. The relatively bigger ones I peeled first, the others I didn't peel. Next time, try not peeling any.