Snow is becoming a rare event here in Croatia. Although we had at least a couple of snowy weeks a year in previous decades, this is changing lately. Last Friday, we got our first decent snow, and of course, it immediately brought problems.

Snowy weekend

Living on a hill can be very challenging. Everyday things like grocery shopping or town visits can’t be done without having some transportation. The situation is even worse during winter when the snow prevents daily movements and sometimes isolates us completely. As I mentioned before, this is becoming a rare event lately, but this weekend’s snow brought many problems.

On Friday we got around 20-30cm(7-11in) of fresh snow. This amount wouldn’t be any problem if we had a decent snow removal crew. Lately, our municipality decided that due to the lack of snow, we don’t need one. Instead, they bought a tractor and decided to clean it themselves. That’s not a problem when the snow is almost non existent, but when you get a lot of snow in a very short period, they don’t have the knowledge or manpower to clean everything. This is why we were completely isolated for a while. Now the roads are clean, but the icy surface is still causing problems. We probably wouldn’t mind if we didn’t know that the municipality on the other side of the hill was completely clean on Friday afternoon, and here we still have icy roads after five days.

The temperatures have been very low during the past week, so we spent most of the week snow shoveling and staying indoors. The garden is out of reach and will be at least for a few weeks more. The problem with the colder side of the hill is clearly visible during the winter and snow periods. While all the other areas around us have started melting slowly, my garden is still completely frozen. There’s even a line on the surrounding trees that represents the area unreachable by the sun.

Seedling progress

Although the garden has been dormant during the past couple of weeks, my seedling area is coming to life quickly. 14 days ago I started my leeks, onions, peppers, eggplants, and slow-growing flowers. Most of them already germinated. I’m still waiting for Petunias and some of the eggplant varieties. The peppers, unlike last year, germinated, so this year I could actually have my own peppers.

I’ve sown everything in joined containers, and I’ll divide them later. The flowers will be separated into smaller groups, and the rest of the plants will get their own containers. But, this will be done later. I’m still not sure what kind of spring we’ll have. The plan is to move outside everything that can survive cold summer conditions, but we’ll see how the weather will progress. If we’ll still have snow weeks we’ll have to build another LED area since I don’t have enough natural light for all the plants.

Weekly plans

This week will be a slow one like the previous one. The weather will probably keep us indoors again, although the temperatures should be slowly rising. If we do get some warmer weather I’m thinking about starting the second batch of seedlings, mostly lettuces and herbs, which can be kept outside once they germinate.

Also, if I get the chance I will empty my kitchen scrap barrel and use it in the side garden. We did buy some manure in December, but I will need some more to ensure a good harvest season. Also, the barrel is quite full, so soon I won’t have any more room for the scraps.

Maybe the snow will melt soon and we’ll be able to do more. Until then we’re taking it slow, and enjoying a much-needed break.