What a Difference a Snow Makes

I have been briefly interrupted from my green movement investigations. In fact, my whole winter existence has been interrupted by an uncharacteristically heavy and persistent snow. I was stuck outside for two days taking down shade cloth and erecting supports for coldframes before the 6" we got. Then I have been stuck inside for a week doing everything from YouTube surfing to year end taxes (yes... I WAS desperate). Now we have rain on top of that, so there's still no working in the garden.


We did not lose any coldframes this time. The ice and freezing rain that followed made things slick, but not broken. So I'm sitting here thinking that, as bad weather goes, this snow event wasn't bad at all.
As it turns out, it was actually very good for all my plants.
You see, snow is both crystallized frozen water and molecules from the air such as sulphur and nitrogen. In other words, snow serves as something like liquid feed for plants.

In spite of feeling like snow and freezing rain make all the plants too cold or too wet, both conditions act as insulators for plants from really cold temperatures. You've probably heard of orange groves in Florida turning on the sprinklers when they are about to experience a big freeze. The ice that surrounds that tropical fruit is 32 degrees but no lower than 32, so it effectively keeps the inside of the fruit from freezing. It works the same way even in hardy plants, and is especially effective when the "Arctic Express" winds come blasting out of the north with temperatures in the teens or below. Smaller twigs on deciduous trees and many of the leaves on broadleaf evergreens can be spared the dessication that is common with fierce and cold winds.

In addition, the agonizingly slow melting is just perfect for seepage into all the right spots in the garden, and down down down to the water table below, leaving it's bounty as it slowly makes it's way. In the Southeast, we are rarely blessed with the equivalent fine rain or mist that would offer the same effect.
I think I need to retract my whining complaints about the last snowy week. All things considered, it was pretty good.

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a Hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Robert Frost