The Garden - Entombed in Ice, But Still Growing!!

After a couple of months of hard winter, this weekend we had a welcome break in the weather. Temperatures yesterday and today have been in the mid-50's.  The snow is melting fast, which is wonderful. The downside is that everything is a muddy mess. 

Saturday, I went out to see how the hoop house is faring. I haven't looked in it since I picked a salad out of it on December 30th. 

Even with the warm temps, the house was still surrounded by deep snow.

I did what I could to shovel it out but under the snow was solid ice.

The boards I use to hold the plastic down were frozen to the ground. One of them even split in half when I tried to force it loose. That's the split piece leaning against the house.

Although I was anxious to see what was going on inside AND get my spring lettuce, spinach, radishes and onions planted, I was going to have to wait for the sun to melt all that ice.

This morning, I was able to pry most of the boards out of the ice. One stubborn board wouldn't give, but I was still able to lift the plastic a bit on one side. It was the deer netting that kept me from doing anything more than looking inside the house. The deer netting is still frozen to the ground. I couldn't lift it out of the way. Bummer!

But check this out!  The spinach is alive and limping along. Amazing! (The black squares in the photo is the deer netting.)

Even more amazing is that the crop I planted in October has grown.

Here's what it looked like on December 30th. The tiny baby spinach plants are just visible under the frost blanket. I used red arrows to help you find them.

Here they are now. (This photo was taken from the opposite side of the house, so the new crop is on the left in this one.)

The lettuce isn't doing as well as the spinach. Some of it looks like it might have survived. I'll see what it does over the next few weeks.

The garlic chives are sprouting.

The yarrow is looking wonderful!

The mint and sage seem to be sprouting, too. I couldn't get close enough to take photos.

I closed the house back up to keep the warmth in. Hopefully, the warm sun today will melt the ice that's trapped the edges of the deer netting. I really want to plant my spring crops!

This hoop house experiment was surprisingly successful.  It's entirely possible to grow fresh greens all winter long in the Colorado Rockies!  I can't believe it really worked!