snow cover and soil temperatures

Judy Glattstein jglatt@ptd.net
Sat, 17 Jul 2004 06:00:47 PDT
Geoffrey Charlesworth and Norman Singer gardened in Massachusetts. Both were
renown for their rock gardens, and each of them sowed literally hundreds of
pots of seeds of alpine plants every year. I remember Geoffrey telling me
once that the ground never froze very much under the winter snow. For easy,
commoner plants he would scoop the snow aside, crack through a couple of
inches of frozen crust - just as Ellen mentioned - and the soil beneath was
friable and suitable for planting. Here in NJ we can have frost two feet or
more in the ground.

Judy, in this week's monsoon belt where we're received 7.95 inches of rain,
in three installments of 4.7", 2.7" (2 inches in one hour!) and .55". At
that, there were places nearby that received significantly more.


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