How Warm Has It Been?

I sit in our dutiful van, rocking, nose running, both due to the brisk wind coming from the southwest that brings in the damp coolness of the ocean. We feel cold under it, but the plants don't seem to mind.

Sunny and in the forties, today became an opportunity for my midwinter visit to the beach farm. Last year around this time the beach farm was covered in several inches of snow.

How warm has it been? Well, all the broccoli that I didn't pull last November has continued to put out side shoots. The garlic, fortunately, stopped putting on new growth. Take a look at that earthworm -it's warm enough that they are active above the surface. The down side is that all of the undesirable creatures have not been killed off by several hard freezes. White flies that came in on my nursery-grown brassicas have hung on quite tenaciously. After pulling four heads for tonight's dinner, I placed them on the fence, where the white flies, irritated by the stinging wind, began to move about to find safer quarters.

We enjoy the warmer than average winter, but afterwards we will curse it.