First snow. Thursday night into Friday morning. About four inches here, give or take. Plus it is quite chilly. 

No one is going to sit in those chairs for a while now. They are made of engineered wood and will withstand the wintry weather, so I leave them out in the garden.

They are too heavy for me to move around every fall and spring, anyway.

I’m not much of a winter vegetable gardener, so the vegetable garden will also be undisturbed until spring.

I am sowing some flats of microgreens inside this weekend. They’ll be a nice, healthy addition to my lunch salads.  

When I walk about the garden, I realize that I am not alone.

Those are probably rabbit tracks.  I put little chicken wire fences around several newer trees and shrubs to keep the rabbits from eating them down to nubbins. I don’t begrudge them eating whatever else they find, in the neighbors’ gardens, of course.

I left this wheelbarrow out in the garden for the winter.

It’s old, and I bought it old to use as a garden sculpture. I hope this just adds some nice patina (rust) to it and doesn’t ruin it.

While I was outside taking some pictures, I checked on my Christmas roses, Helleborus niger ‘Josef Lemper’.

You’ll just have to believe me that there are flower buds under that snow. I was tempted to carefully remove the snow but decided to leave it be.  It’s better for the snow to gradually melt rather than to have me scrape it off and risk breaking off the flower buds. Plus, the snow helps to insulate the crown of the plant.

If you don’t mind, we’ll go inside now. It is cold outside, but inside…  inside is where a lot is going on these days. New library room, new flowers, new books, new ideas for gardening… it is officially the Thinking Season of Gardening.

Wherever you are. Stay warm!