Winter Preparation-What Do You Do

f1pt4

Chumono
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I build an enclosure using old doors as a windscreen against the north-facing foundation of my house. Lattice on top to keep the heavy snow out but lets lighter precipitation in for watering purposes. No sun from Oct to April helps moderate the temps. Pine straw around the pots which sit directly on the ground.View attachment 120577 View attachment 120578 View attachment 120579 View attachment 120580


Very nice, but aren't you worried about mice and varments going through the deadbolt and handle holes on the door?
 

wireme

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Landscape cloth and pumice mulch for medium/ small trees. Snow supports will be added around and over conifers with dense or sensitive foliage to prevent breakage. image.jpg
Deciduous trees will be buried right over trunks and branches that I don't want to lose to mice. Later, when it's consistently freezing daytime temps. It's been working well but only because it's cold enough that it stays frozen all winter, in warmer areas you'd probably see decay of twigs and branches by springtime. image.jpg
Bigger stuff in bigger containers gets placed together and covered with wood chips. The wood chips are inoculated with edible fungi. They don't get cleaned up in spring but raked under benches where they grow mushrooms, turn to soil quickly due to fungal activity and provide good scratching, bug and worm hunting grounds for the chickens. Spruce usually go around the perimeter, they are the ones that can handle the coldest temps of all I believe. Pics show wood chips placed between trees, more trees added, then more trees, more chips. I've got a ways to go yet. Mulch is wet enough that it will freeze solid and not be a tempting bedding material/spot for rodents.
I know of some people in pretty nasty climates who bury trees in pea gravel beds that are part of their landscaping, seems to work well for them. image.jpgimage.jpgimage.jpg
 

vicn

Yamadori
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Landscape cloth and pumice mulch for medium/ small trees. Snow supports will be added around and over conifers with dense or sensitive foliage to prevent breakage. View attachment 121224
Deciduous trees will be buried right over trunks and branches that I don't want to lose to mice. Later, when it's consistently freezing daytime temps. It's been working well but only because it's cold enough that it stays frozen all winter, in warmer areas you'd probably see decay of twigs and branches by springtime. View attachment 121225
Bigger stuff in bigger containers gets placed together and covered with wood chips. The wood chips are inoculated with edible fungi. They don't get cleaned up in spring but raked under benches where they grow mushrooms, turn to soil quickly due to fungal activity and provide good scratching, bug and worm hunting grounds for the chickens. Spruce usually go around the perimeter, they are the ones that can handle the coldest temps of all I believe. Pics show wood chips placed between trees, more trees added, then more trees, more chips. I've got a ways to go yet. Mulch is wet enough that it will freeze solid and not be a tempting bedding material/spot for rodents.
I know of some people in pretty nasty climates who bury trees in pea gravel beds that are part of their landscaping, seems to work well for them. View attachment 121228View attachment 121229View attachment 121230
I love what you are doing. In this area, that much lava or pumice would cost as much as a separate building! And there isn't enough moisture here for mushrooms, but how cool to get a dual, even triple (with the use by chickens), purpose out of your wood chips!! What type of mushrooms do you get?
 

wireme

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That looks like a lot of hard work! Call me crazy, but open door, walk in tree, sit on bench, close door.... sounds much easier!

Oh it is and I wouldn't call you crazy. Open, close door sounds alright.
We all face different logistical challenges. I'm in a municipality where bylaws restrict the number of outbuildings a property can have. Flat yard space is at a premium as well. I've actually got a 2 acre yard here but it's mostly a long narrow and steep hillside that's a mess of blowdown beetlekill lodgepole pine. I haven't been here that long, someday I'll get it cleaned up. Maybe carve out a flat spot that's hidden and put up a coldhouse. Running power to it out there would be my biggest hurdle. Next outbuilding I build will be a climate controlled mushroom growing room, trees later.
What I do now is definitely not 100 percent safe. Rodents, snow breakage, moisture levels, temps could potentially all be a problem. A lot could go wrong, usually it doesn't. The big advantage is that it's totally hands off, I could leave the country for 5 months of the year and all would be the same. No watering, watching temperatures, just mulch and pray!
 
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wireme

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I love what you are doing. In this area, that much lava or pumice would cost as much as a separate building! And there isn't enough moisture here for mushrooms, but how cool to get a dual, even triple (with the use by chickens), purpose out of your wood chips!! What type of mushrooms do you get?

I couldn't get pumice here either at any price so I brought a trailer load in from a pumice mine on the coast, got a giant pile now! The pumice itself was almost free from the mine, cost comes from moving it around. I didn't go get it with mulch in mind just wanted some for planting in and if I was going all that way may as well get a pile.
It's usually too dry here for the shrooms on their own too but under the benches and stumps catching the runoff from the trees they do well. We've inoculated with shaggy mane and Garden Giants (stropharia). No luck yet with the shaggy manes but tons of the garden Giants. This was our biggest cluster, you can see where they got the name! They fruit during warm weather unlike most mushrooms around here. image.jpg
 
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wireme

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Wow! Are they a cash crop for you? Beautiful family and quite the bunch of 'shrooms too!

Yah, they are sort of., We grow and sell a few different types, farmers markets, a couple restaurants. The Garden Giants in wood chips tend to get too wormy to be salable unfortunately. We get some that we can sell but many more that we can't. They are a great soil building tool though even if you don't grow them for the fruits. You can mulch heavy enough to kill all the weeds and the mycelium turns it to plantable soil in about 18 months, great way to start a garden.
 
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I just got finished with my main winter area for my trees. I have had a lot of vole damage in the past so I made this with double wrapped 1/4'' hardware cloth and treated lumber. It is open on the top and bottom (except for the hardware cloth) for snow and additional heat from the earth. I plan to slide the box near the house and put my trees in with mulch up to the first branch. I hope this option will work for me, Im not at home for most of the winter so I can't check them but the idea is they are buried in snow anyway.
 

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Sunwyrm

Mame
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Can I jump in to ask if I there's anything wrong with just sticking all my trees in my shed for the winter? It's unheated with a couple windows. Is there any more/less I should do for them? It just seems like the easiest option...
I'm in the same area as @rockm
 

Dav4

Drop Branch Murphy
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Can I jump in to ask if I there's anything wrong with just sticking all my trees in my shed for the winter? It's unheated with a couple windows. Is there any more/less I should do for them? It just seems like the easiest option...
I'm in the same area as @rockm
Perfectly ok...as long as you make sure the soil in the pots doesn't dry out, the temperature inside stays below 40F all winter long but above 20F and you keep vermin in check...easy peasy:D.
 

Sunwyrm

Mame
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Perfectly ok...as long as you make sure the soil in the pots doesn't dry out, the temperature inside stays below 40F all winter long but above 20F and you keep vermin in check...easy peasy:D.

:eek:
 

Paradox

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I just expanded my cold frame to 2x its original size

2016Expansion3_small.jpg
 

Paradox

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Dual purpose perhaps......as they can be bench supports in the summer

Who the hell wants to move 30-40 cement blocks 2x a year. Not me!

I moved the original coldframe one foot :confused: to be able to fit the expansion. Getting that first layer of block even and level is a major PITA. Those blocks will stay put.

Seriously, it's bad enough moving 50 or so trees around.

I have greenhouse benches I use for my trees in the summer.
 

Wilson

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I leave a good portion of trees on the ground covered in permafrost! Then ones that I treat like my favorite children get a comfy cold frame. This is the first year I have trees that really don't jive with my zone, not tropical, and definitely not zone 4! They are pieris, and azaleas, so I am trying to make a plan for them.
 

ghues

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Who the hell wants to move 30-40 cement blocks 2x a year. Not me!

I moved the original coldframe one foot :confused: to be able to fit the expansion. Getting that first layer of block even and level is a major PITA. Those blocks will stay put.

Seriously, it's bad enough moving 50 or so trees around.

I have greenhouse benches I use for my trees in the summer.

@Paradox......Hey......Just an idea.......I had envisioned that the benches could be right along that fence....only have to move some of them...keeps one young lol.
 

Paradox

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@Paradox......Hey......Just an idea.......I had envisioned that the benches could be right along that fence....only have to move some of them...keeps one young lol.

Thats the north side of my house, which is the best place for a coldframe. Not enough sun there to put benches. My benches are on the west side of my house actually, behind that fence.
 
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