Tucked in for Winter

Last weekend, we were hit with the first “pre-winter storm” of consequence and when it was finished, the yard was buried under roughly 10 inches of snow. It’s stuck around all week and shows no sign of disappearing before Christmas. If anything, we’re supposed to get a few more inches before Santa’s arrival. I’m mostly relieved. Anything I didn’t get done out there by now will just have to wait until Spring, more or less. There are still a couple projects I have to do out there:

• I still plan to get at least one last meal of kale though I’ll have to excavate a bit through the snow. That’s the part that will take 20 minutes. Perhaps it’ll be a good side dish for Christmas Day when we have our one big piece of beef for the year (a standing rib roast) served with home-made horseradish.

• I will prune a bit on the apple tree. This task has been itching at me all year. I’m pretty sure I can make the tree happier in its surrounding but I didn’t really want to nip at it while there was still sap in its veins. The first tree I pruned was the overgrown apple in my folk’s backyard. The tree was tall; the day was cold and I had no ladder. I had a good sharp saw though. I ended up with enough wood to smoke a turkey breast. I won’t get anywhere near that many branches from this little sapling but I think 20 minutes of pruning can help coax it into making a few more apples next year for us (or for the birds!)

• I really should adjust the tension on the raspberry trellis. A few years back I made a raspberry trellis to support the brambles of our black raspberries. I used some leftover 4 by 4 to make two ends that sort of look like telephone poles and I strung clothes line between them. They’re quite handsome, if I do say so myself and very useful. It’s just that over the years the clothes line has gotten a bit loose. Cinching it up should take about 20 minutes. Then again… maybe that can wait ’til spring too.

I really can’t think of much more that I *have* to do outside.

But just because the 20 Minute Garden is tucked in for winter, it doesn’t mean that the 20 Minute Gardeners have nothing to do. We just get to move our base of operations inside and instead of iced tea, we’ll drink hot tea with honey.