Robin Babies

Finally, the eggs have hatched.  You can only see three beaks, but all four are there.  

I have no idea when they hatched as I've been avoiding the shed.  Not so with Sugar Ray - I had to pull him out of the shed twice yesterday and eventually locked him in the house.  I guess he knew the babies were up there, but they weren't making any noise so I didn't realize.

He seemed okay once he made himself comfortable in the house.

After the Frost

As you can see from this snippet from the weather networks "last 24 hours" in my area, we not only had a frost, but the temperature fully dipped below zero between 5 and 6 this morning. 

Although I had fully covered my plants (OK, not so much the tomatoes, but everything else) I still got frost damage to many of them.  I'll see if any recover over the day as it's hard to tell if they are just limp or completely done.  But I'm still fine ... I had many more plants than I really needed although I was more than happy to have them all.  So even if I lose half, it will be okay.  But keeping my fingers crossed!

This is from a local news report this morning:

Temperatures across Ottawa and region plummeted below the freezing mark Friday night, with the wind chill falling to as low as -10, according to Environment Canada.

Frost Warning!

I've been a bit neglectful of my blog (and reading other blogs) this week as I've been busy with both work and renovations at home (arghh, still not done!).  So I don't know if everyone is hurting weather-wise.  In my case, I have been experiencing massive wind gusts for the past week or two.  And tonight there is a frost forecast.

Since I haven't posted a general view of my garden lately, that was supposed to be my next post.  And I guess, technically, that is what I'm doing ... it's just that everything is covered up!!  I knew this was coming but it isn't as if you can do anything sooner.  I can't very well cover up my plants all week in expectation!  So as soon as I got home from work (admittedly, I left a bit early today) I started to prepare for the dreaded frost.

I had pulled most seedlings out of the greenhouse over the week to harden off.  They quickly went back into the greenhouse.

 

Anything that was "lying around" on the other side of the yard ended up in the garage.

The bigger plants - pumpkin, summer and winter squash - were covered with overturned pots.  I have lots of pots so this was easy enough. 

Or in some cases I used "hot hats" ($20 or something like that for a set of 10 at Lee Valley).

This wheelbarrow is turned over some mousemelon plants.

And this contraption is a combination of whatever-that-material-is-called plus pieces of my old compost bin strategically placed around my sugar pumpkin plants.

Tomatoes in the garden were covered with plastic.  Or mostly covered.  I always start more seedlings than I need in case I lose some - so whatever, I covered as many as I felt like and I still have more than a dozen plants safely stowed in the greenhouse.

Pepper plants, ARGH!  I potted many of them up and really don't have room (or the energy) for them in the greenhouse.  So I really hope this plastic doesn't get blown away by the heavy winds.

And that's been a challenge ... to lay the plastic down in the first place, but also to make sure it will stay down.  For this garden of beans, I've used several different "objects" to keep it from blowing away.

The plastic, by the way, is leftover from the old greenhouse that I used to have.  I have TONS of it.  It's stored in my garage for use whenever I need it - like to build cold frames.  Or mostly to give away to friends.

So that's the current state.  I'll take another peak before it gets too dark as the wind is still pretty crazy.  And if all goes well (fingers crossed), I'll share a better update over the weekend!