It’s about 32 degrees out in the garden right now. Finally!

I did end up covering one of our two raised beds, but I only used the very lightest row cover fabric. A quick peak at the thermometer inside the cover shows that it is about the same temperature under the cover as outside, so apparently it isn’t doing much good. I don’t know if that’s because I didn’t put it on until noon yesterday or because it isn’t very airtight. After all, bricks and duct tape don’t make for a very tight row cover.

Yes, I said duct tape. I realized when I started putting the row cover on that I had 3 pieces of the lightweight fabric and none of them were long enough for the whole bed. In order to get it to stay on, I resorted to duct tape. Most of the tape is inside on the hoops, but I had to put a couple pieces on the outside. I may have to buy new row cover now, after the duct tape adventure. I’ll also have to put the heavier cover on before next weekend, when it looks like the forecast is predicting more seasonably cool/cold temperatures.

The Bachelor Buttons started blooming just in time for it to freeze. Luckily, they don’t really care about 30 degrees. They will probably still bloom for another couple weeks. Oh yeah, and they’re edible too!

Our compost committee was busy this week, as we had a full bin of plants that we’d pulled out of the garden, as well as some leaves from around the grounds and the straw mulch from several of the beds. The three big bins are full, as well as 3 smaller bins. We’ll have lots of great compost come spring!

Here’s a sneak peek inside the row cover after I put it on yesterday. You can see that we have some bare spots. For some reason, we didn’t have great germination on things this fall. I don’t know if that’s due to the seed, the generally dry weather, or just not enough TLC. I’m suspicious that we didn’t keep the beds moist enough when the seeds were trying to germinate.

It’s supposed to be a beautiful weekend! Get outside and enjoy it!