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I hate the cold weather. The new climate map has put us in zone 6. However, someone forgot to tell mother nature, because we keep getting zone 5 weather, just like we always have. I’d like to have a little global warming here please.

That’s a really good deal for the 4 x 6 timber. I really do hate the hassles of taking off plastic every day. Usually, I don’t use plastic at all. I use double row covers for all temps down to 24 degrees, and don’t really take them off unless we get a really really nice sunshiney day. Once every couple of weeks, works pretty well.

When it gets colder than 24 degrees, I toss straw or a styrofoam, egg crate mattress on top of the row cover. Then when I want to, I just roll up the row cover a bit on the south west side, so that the sun can shine into the bed, but I don’t have to take the whole thing off and reposition it.

I’d really like to have chickens, but not sure we could get by with it here. Some of the neighbors would probably object.

It was down to 21 degrees here last night so I hear you on the Zone issues. Hasn’t been that cold here even in the dead of winter for years. Even so, it gets up to the 50’s during the day and we try to roll back the cover’s if only for half a day.

I was worried about one of my neighbors too. He is an older man who likes to bully everyone, I suppose, because he is bored. He hasn’t said a word about it (thank goodness) and we’ve had the flock for about 5 months.

We are in a “restricted” neighborhood and the house behind us (not under covenant) came up for sale. We bought it for rental property and part of the agreement is we get to use the backyard for gardening and coop. It was the only way to one up the homeowners association.

City ordinance does limit our flock size but as long as nobody complains we are good to go. I built an attractive coop and we keep everything clean to avoid odor. We even fenced off a paddock area for free ranging but the girls need supervision. They are bad to jump the fence into the garden area when no one is looking. We decided against a rooster because of noise. Usually get an egg a day per chicken so we had plenty available for Thanksgiving recipes.

Luckily my husband is very proactive in the garden and we work as a team. I generally keep up with the weather and he helps me when a cold snap requires extra manpower.

This is only our second winter garden and we didn’t expect such cold weather so early on. We had to order the row covers online and they got here the day before the first freeze. The plastic was when we went into panic mode and it was all that was available quick and economically.

So far so good. No loss of any plants except a couple of ferns we were trying to save. We are going to cook a big pot of greens tonight and make cornbread. Good eat’n.

Having trouble posting pics but will try one of the coop.

< img src=”http://rs892.pbsrc.com/albums/ac128/jordansjourney/Mobile%20Uploads/2013-09-30_10-24-24_416_zps3a43db36.jpg~320x480"; >

We are also placed in zone 6, but have had quite a few zone 6 tolerant plants die during winter. It’s frustrating, but I usually try to buy plants that are good down to zone 3 or 4 just to be safe. Sometimes I make an exception, and then have to move a plant to a more sheltered spot if it does poorly.