Foggy Ridge Dispatch: February 10, 2025
Snow. Seed starting. Sunrises. Sunsets. Soil blocks. And surprise: I *am* still with you as a member of the mortal plane!
My friends, please forgive my long absence from making Monday’s regular Foggy Ridge Dispatch posts (and really, all posts). If I’m being honest, during the last half of December, I took my first vacation in quite some time and allowed myself to slip into a delightful near-fugue state to work on some paintings…sort of like an artist residency, only in my home studio. Then January swept me up in a whirlwind of more art-making, pursuing business contracts, planning the homestead calendar for the year, and putting the finishing touches on my husband’s new architecture studio.
And now, it’s now.
So, what’s been happening here in our bucolic slice of northern Vermont? I’ll tell ya.
SNOW. Lots of snow. Perhaps not unusual for this region of Vermont, but it’s only our second winter up here and last year was unfortunately mild. But this year, we’ve been rewarded with beautiful powder and an unusual amount of sun, all while keeping things quite cold. We did have a sad thaw between Christmas and New Year’s Eve and a hit-or-miss early January, but I can forgive it all in light of bluebird February days like these:
No matter the temperature, I’ve been trying to get outside in meaningful ways each day. Sometimes - if it’s really cold - that might mean only walking half a mile. I’ve found that I really love to do this around 7:30am; it makes life feel brisk after breakfast but before the workday takes hold of me, and there’s always at least one neighbor to wave and smile at as they leave for work. But even when my walks are so short, they’re cause for life-affirming, Vermont-affirming joy.
One nifty thing I’ve noticed in the low evening light: the beautiful, almost topographic relief patterns in the snow. They feel reminiscent of similar patterns I’ve seen in windblown sand, so I’m assuming they’re also a product of the wind? And my goodness, that diamond-dust sparkling that happens in the morning and evening - it pulls at my heartstrings every time I see it. As a born-and-raised denizen of the Deep South, I never thought I’d find myself so enamored with winter…but even when a week (or three) of grey skies starts to snuff out my will to do anything except hibernate, seeing a little sunrise or sunset stretching far across the snow rekindles me. I hope I never lose this sense of wonderment and appreciation - some days, it is all we have.
But of course, in the depths of winter, there’s one thing that every gardener, farmer, and homesteader is certainly doing: looking at seed catalogues and dreaming of seed starting. I’m no exception! In fact, I placed an order to my favorite supplier - High Mowing Seeds - a couple of weeks ago and now those precious seeds are in hand, counting down the days until planting with me.
Even if I weren’t a Vermonter, I think High Mowing would still have my heart (and my wallet, ha!) for the vast majority of my veg, herb, and flower seeds. Their inventory feels unique to me in that I can purchase almost every annual plant (and many perennials) that I want to grow in the form of heirloom seeds, many of which have good disease resistance. Yes, yes - hybrids generally have mega-robust yields, engineered disease resistance, and folks claim they produce sweeter corn, bigger tomatoes, etc (I’ll reserve judgement there). And High Mowing has a fabulous selection of F1 hybrids (and beyond F1 as well, I think) But folks - you can SAVE seed from your heirloom annuals and - barring unfortunate cross-pollination with a compatible partner - get the exact same plant next year that you grew this year. With hybrids, such is not the case - at least, not often. You might be thinking, “Hey, if you can just save that seed, why would you keep giving High Mowing - or any seed supplier - your business?” Because I value them and their labors of love, of course - and so I’ll buy seeds for new things, or to shore up my supply of a thing I deeply love, or to give as gifts, or to donate to our local seed library. Don’t get me wrong: I love a good hybrid every now and then…but there’s something about the looming instability of our disease-free food security that has me thinking, “I should really make deposits in my own heirloom seed bank more often.”
To that end, I have to grow out more crops than I usually would so I can ensure I have plenty of seed to save. But we don’t have a greenhouse (yet). Enter my favorite space-saving method of seed starting: soil blocks.
Honestly, I’ll probably use soil blocks even when we do have a greenhouse. I love the compact quality; the ability to pot up to a larger size container without transplant shock; and the reduction of plastic enabled by not using cell-based trays. If you’re interested in trying out soil blocking, Johnny’s Select Seeds has a sale on soil blocking equipment right now. I’d recommend the 20-cell and the 4-cell blockers. The 20-cell lets you start a LOT of plants in a very compact space; they’re just 3/4” square. Then you can pot up (or rather, block up) your successful seedlings into the larger size soil block (2” square) made by the 4-cell blockers with zero transplant shock. Doing the math, I’ll be able to start over 3,000 plants in a space the size of a small bookshelf (12 standard-size 1020 flats) - epic! Now, of course, I don’t have room for all of those starts once they need to be blocked up into the larger 2” blocks - I’ll only have room for around 400 plants. So if you’re in Caledonia County or nearby, plan on seeing my post about orphan seed starts needing adoption later in the spring!
Well, friends, that’s all for this edition of Foggy Ridge Dispatch.
Next Monday, I’ll have some new paintings to share, more lovely photos (I’m sure), and a special rundown of one of my favorite events of the year: the NOFA-VT Winter Conference. Oh, and! - I may have finished programming some handy gardening/homesteading dynamic schedule tables (interactive spreadsheets) that automatically calculate dates for things related to chicken-rearing and seed-starting. Keep an eye out!
Safe travels though life ‘til then.
Warmly,
Jack
Thanks for the tip about soil blocks!!! I’m not sure how much seed starting we’ll do with the baby (I’ll happily provide a home for your orphan starts!) but they’ll definitely be a part of a future garden
Your fresh take on winter is inspiring. I know it's been a lovely one, and one of the most *wintery* I can remember in the past decade. As a native new englander, I don't always appreciate the magic of the glistening snow, and appreciate the reminder. Also your pictures are amazing.