Here's a couple of updates on this year's Arctic freezing season:

09/16 Glen Koehler:

The graphs show that while we were carefully discussing how far the wind would spread the sheen of remaining Arctic Sea Ice rubble for the September 2025 Extent minimum, the ice is dying.

09/17 The Walrus:

Based on Glen's post, thickness must have decreased from an average of 1.46M in 2012 to 1.01M this year.

11/01 binntho:

Refreeze has been below average, and this year is now 4th lowest in the satellite era for the date. Extent is currently almost 300k below the average of the 10 previous years.

The 3 day median concentration animation from Polar Python shows how the Siberian side is almost completely frozen, but there is still a narrow band of open ocean on the Alaskan side and the Atlantic front is still further north than usual.

But what is usual? The 10 year animation showing the University of Bremen concentration maps on October 30th shows that there is quite a lot of variability in how freezing progresses. Remember that we are now past the peak freezing period as shown by the 10 year 7 day average.

The years 2016 and 2020 clearly stand out, 2020 was 732k lower than 2025 on this date, and 2016 was 545k lower. In third place, 2024 was 112k lower than 2025

11/02 uniquorn:

Can still see ice melting in the warmer water north of the Voronin Trough oct28-nov1

11/5 Jim Hunt:

The minimum modelled sea ice volume was 3.87 thousand km³ on September 12th. (edit comment, this is 2nd lowest in historical record)

11/17 binntho:

JAXA extent 16-Nov is 8,573,901 km2, an increase in extent of 39,516 km2
which is 20,921 km2 less than the 10 year 7 day running centered average of an increase of 60,437 km2

Extent is second lowest in satellite record, 109k above 2016 in #1 and 193k below 2020 in #3

(my emphasis)

Next spring, we're going to put two garden beds in at Riverwood - a "lasagna" layer raised bed, and a hugelkulture bed. Each bed will be 8-10 feet long (3 meters or so) and we'll plant a couple of fruit trees nearby, too.

I want to see how the beds perform, and how we like them. We'll construct the beds next spring, and let them age a year before planting. We'll put them near the site where we're going to put up the pole barn, deep well, and the bath house. This is also the area that I call The Campground, and where I'd like to put in my Hobbit House. It's what Mike calls The Staging Ground.

Hügelkultur bed: Topped with low bush blueberries, and then later with with sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, onions, and squash. Because the blueberries need an acidic soil, and all of these veggies/roots are good with acidic soil, some more than others. We'll see how they do.

Lasagna layer bed: rhubarb on each end, and the middle interplanted with strawberry and asparagus.

We want the lasagna bed to have an Italian plum on each end, lending some dappled shade to the rhubarb. And we're going to put in two pawpaws west of the hugelkulture.

notes from the internet:

Plant tomatoes alongside basil and marigolds. Basil repels pests like whiteflies and hornworms, and marigolds attract beneficial insects like ladybugs that eat hornworms.

Plant cucumbers with radishes and beans to deter cucumber beetles. Nasturtiums can also be used as a trap crop to lure pests away from your cucumbers.

Plant onions with carrots, rosemary, and other beneficial plants, but keep them away from beans. Audrey had great results with the carrot cultivar New Kuroda.



To grow pawpaw, you need two different cultivars for cross pollination. I'm looking at:
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