This morning in Minnesota it was around -7°F with wind chill. I am so thankful we now live in North Carolina where we dip a few degrees below freezing at night, and the day temperatures will rise to the 40s. Winter is quiet on the farm but also the perfect time for us to do a lot of tree cleanup and prepare for the next year.
Koi and the Winter Koi Pond
Late September, a few koi took a roadtrip to the South Carolina Koi and Water Garden Show. They won a few awards so that was a nice surprise. As an AKJA judge, we are supposed to show some of our own koi annually. While the shows are fun to reconnect with members of the koi community, it is hard on the koi. One minute they are happily swimming around the pond and then they are bagged/boxed for a few hours, unpacked into a small vat of water for a few days, then repacked for the trip home. I feel sorry for the larger fish and believe it’s pretty stressful for them.
In November, we hosted the Charlotte Koi Club for their last monthly meeting in 2025. About an hour after everyone left, we started winterizing our pond. It only took a few hours to put up a frame and rehang the clear vinyl tarps. We affixed the tarp to wood pieces using plastic pipe hangar strapping. This keeps the vinyl from flapping wildly when it gets windy. We’ll keep these walls up through the end of March.
While sunlight passes through the clear walls, we added some full spectrum lights at one end of the pond. Light is good for a koi’s coloration and it will encourage some algae growth on the pond walls. The algae is a great winter snack for the koi. They have been switched to a wheat germ product already but we’ll be feeding more lightly with the water temperature heading down to 50°F.
Protecting the pond from the wind keeps the water temperature from dropping too much. The koi are still very active and are eating well. The one change I notice heading into winter is that it takes longer for them to finish their food.
Japanese Maples
Each year I get a little more color in the fall from my Japanese maples. The leaves change at different times and this year I probably should have watered more in late summer/early fall. Many of my trees entered the color changing season with only 65-80 percent of the leaves they had during the summer. Maples do not need a lot of water, but I should have been more thoughtful. A little more watering might have had the trees with 90% of their summer leaves before color changes started.
A few weeks ago, I went to Grove Creek Maple Farm (GCMF) to check on the maples that I ordered. There are about ten maples that were selected in Oregon and shipped to North Carolina. We wait until the leaves have all dropped before transporting them out to our farm. While I was at GCMF, a mature watnong commanded my attention. Large, intricate branching, beautiful shape and still holding some last fall coloring. It’s the perfect maple to place next to my koi pond. I have an inabe shidare maple that would take years to get to this size – I plan to replace it with the new larger maple. This tree and a few others will get delivered some time in December. We will then need to rent an excavator to plant some of the larger specimens.
With the December shipment, that brings the total of Japanese maples on the farm to 99 trees. What I originally thought was going to be a small, manageable garden behind the house, say 3/10 of an acre, has already ballooned to half an acre. This does not count the maples planted around the koi pond and in front of the house. It’s a bit blurry and difficult to see in this post but I have an overhead view of the property area near the house and numbered various maple areas.
This past weekend we decided to clear another tenth of an acre for Japanese maples. Area #10 doesn’t look like much now but we took down a large tree, removed several small trees and started some regrading. I’m hoping the tree planter can make some nice hills for my maples.
In front of the house we now have flat rocks in a single layer for the dry creek. We will be adding a few Japanese maples and mulch to soften the edges. I think we might need to import some large rocks to place randomly within the bed.
I planted one maple deep in the bamboo shade. This maple did well all summer. Even after a few freezing evenings, the tree is holding on to the last of its white leaves. Great experiment since I now know that I can add more shade loving maple trees in this area.
Winter landscaping requires a lot of chainsaws, truckloads of dirt and compost, and a fire pit to dispatch the bulk of wood being cut. We’ll be adding truckloads of mulch to the regular orders.
The Chickens
We have added clear vinyl to some of the chicken run walls. They cut down on the wind and reduce the amount of rain that is blown into the run. Chickens are very hardy so they really don’t need a ‘warm’ environment. Freezing morning temperatures don’t stop them from coming out of the hen house.
Chickens love the tree planter – probably because he’s always giving them worm snacks. They enjoy following him around and watching what he’s doing. The chickens enjoyed picking over the Thanksgiving turkey carcasses. They really are like little dinosaurs and left only bones. Our chickens also like to eat salad greens so I give them some every few days. I really should be sprouting some seeds for them but I’m too lazy.
Our chickens are pretty healthy overall but I have a sapphire green egger who looks like she has vent gleet. I gave her an epsom salt bath and put her into the hospital coop where I could apply some fungicide daily on her more easily. It could be that she’ll just look bad, or it could be vent gleet, but she seems to be doing fine. While I had her away from the flock we brought in another sapphire green egger who was molting to keep her company. After a few days, we put both chickens back with the flock. Crossing my fingers that the other hens remain unaffected.
Small Scale Food Production
The new garden produced some late summer zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, kale, radishes and carrots. All the winter vegetables are covered and continuing to grow. We have plenty of lettuce, spinach, kale, carrots and radishes to eat right now. In a few weeks, we might have our first cauliflower and broccoli.
We grow more than two people can possibly eat. Good thing our chickens like these crops as well. Even though we have all of this growing in the garden, I will be planting some arugula, lettuce and green onions in the three beds next to our house.
Another lesson in “failed farming projects.” I planted several bean plants this year. I let the pods grow and dry on the vine, then shelled for the dried beans. You really have to plant a large number of bean plants if you hope to enough dried beans to last you through the winter. This year my plants yielded about 2.5 cups of beans. Planting beans for fresh green beans is good. It’s more economical and easier to purchase heirloom dried beans off Amazon.
I’m dreaming of a mediterranean garden in 2026
Mid-fall we took a two week trip to Montreux, Venice, Rome and Athens. Aside from seeing the sites, I’m always interested in what kind of local food you can buy in foreign countries. Like us, they can get a lot of imported fruits and vegetables – but some of their local stuff is very cool. The food was generally good everywhere but we really loved the food in Greece. It was the Mediterranean diet every meal!
We saw a lot of gardens and drove by many agricultural areas. While we do not live in a mediterranean climate, there are several items that could be grown on our farm. Next year I’d like to plant some olive trees (arbequino works in our area), more fig trees, and a pomegranate tree. I’m also interested in mediterranean herbs and a plant called sideritis, which is used for Greek mountain tea.
I have asked the tree planter if he will make me a mediterranean style garden near our vegetable garden. I’m thinking of some fun stone and concrete work to protect the olive trees…and we’d want a few lines of grapes for visual effect. Of course he has agreed so I’ll have to get busy and design something. It’s always fun to sketch something with little to no knowledge and watch him turn it into reality.
We have weeks of tree work ahead and before you know it, it will be spring again. Winter doesn’t stop the list of projects to be done on the farm. If you are ever passing near us and want to dig large holes, chainsaw trees, move stuff around with the tractor, split wood, pick up rocks… we’re always happy for helping hands! We hope everyone has a joyful holiday season and a great 2026 ahead!