Fresh Salad on December 30th!

If you've been following my blog you know that I set a goal of picking a fresh salad from the garden on Christmas Day. For the newcomers here....I built this hoop house in the fall in an attempt to extend my growing season into the late fall and winter.

So far, it's survived several snow storms...

... extreme winds and even a blizzard.

Because we were in the middle of a snow storm on Christmas, I decided not to open the hoop house to pick a salad. That would have exposed the plants to the brutal weather, even if only for a few minutes. Later Christmas week we had another snow storm. Temperatures haven't gone much above freezing for about two weeks. Nighttime lows are in the single digits. 

Today, we got a little break and it got all the way up to 41 degrees. Even still, there's quite a bit of snow hanging around.

I put the frost blanket inside several weeks ago. Although with the extreme weather we've been having, I doubt it made much of a difference. 

But amazingly, the spinach and lettuce were still hanging in there!

Granted, they looked a little stressed, but they're not a frozen mess.  Speaking of which, the soil is frozen solid. I don't know how these plants aren't dead! Had I known they would last this long, I'd have planted a lot more back in the fall!

I picked a little spinach and lettuce to make a salad for my lunch at work tomorrow and left the rest. Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to pick a salad on Valentine's Day?

The Boys were enjoying the mild temperatures today, too. All three were napping at the same time.

But of course once I walked closer, Kipp got up to see what I was up to.

And thus ends another quiet day at Crossed Sabers Ranch.