Robin's Outdoors

The end of the last growing season is here. The days are too short and as of four days ago, too cold, to support plant growth in the high tunnels.

There’s still plenty to do in the tunnels between now and Groundhog Day, but it will wait a while. I’m ready for a break.

Daytime temperatures were in the 50s several times this month. The doors were opened and sometimes the sides were rolled up a few inches to keep the cool-weather loving plants from overheating. Two rows of spinach refuse to grow; it’s too warm for them.

The plants have been through a bit of shock as the temperature swings 85 degrees in four days. I went to a tunnel this morning to take pictures of frozen plants. Frost lightly covered most of the plants.

Boc Choi, early on a cold morning

The spinach looked good other than being frosty. Boc choi, salad turnips, kohlrabi, lettuce, Swiss chard, beet greens and Purple Top White Globe turnip were limp. A few hours and 25 degrees later, the plants looked much better. If the sun had been out it would have been warm enough inside to allow for harvesting greens. I pulled turnips to have for supper. The plants weren’t thawed but looked better.

A roll of paper towels I left in the tunnel weeks ago had been disturbed. Small pieces were sticking out from under the edge of a bale of peat. A quick check revealed no babies; the nest was a work in progress. I cleaned up the paper and set a trap under a cardboard box. Meadow voles do a considerable amount of damage in a short time. Like me, they harvest and store greens.

The vole will run down the edge of the raised bed into the box and get caught in the trap. It’s not quite that easy, though. I nearly trapped my fingers three times, gasped once because the SNAP! startled me, and was one try away from waiting for the little beast so I could stomp on it. The traps are necessarily strong so that the rodents don’t suffer. I’ll check the trap daily until the damage stops.

One the way out of the tunnel, I spotted my down vest tossed over another bale of peat. I’d been wiping my dirty, wet hands on it the last time I’d worn it, so when I got back to the house I tossed it into the washing machine. Later, after filling the machine with more laundry, I poured the detergent, turned on the water, closed the lid and walked away.

An hour later, I opened the lid to find something disturbing. There were shreds of wet paper towel throughout the load of laundry. Oh no! I shook the vest when I picked it up, a habit I developed after being stung by something last summer. But I hadn’t checked the pockets.

Piece by piece, I took the laundry out, gave it a shake and placed it into the dryer. A small “ping” came from the lid. Shredded paper towel doesn’t “ping” sharply. This was something solid. Had I just washed a vole?

I washed a litter of five voles, still pink and tiny. I felt bad. A quick SNAP! to instant death is one thing. Drowning in 45-degree well water and detergent is another. To be sure I hadn’t missed any babies, I took the laundry out of the dryer one piece at a time, giving each one a shake. I’d gotten all of them before they went into the dryer. I washed the load again.

You never know what you’ll find in a high tunnel in December. Or in your washing machine after you’ve been in a high tunnel.

The only work left in the tunnels for the next seven weeks is watering and a few minutes of weeding. The vegetables won’t grow but hardy weeds will. I’m officially on a seven-week vacation from garden work. All I have to tend to for that time is poultry.

It’s a welcome break.

Robin Follette and her husband, Steve, operate Seasons Eatings Farm in Talmadge, Maine.