Page last updated on 1 December 2007

Making the snow melt early

The first application of soil dust on the top of the snow.

The left photo shows the backyard garden on 12 March 2007. The temperature had been cold, even for around here - about -30 degrees F nightly for about one month previous to this photo. We had about two feet of snow on the ground. Since the raised beds were prepared the previous year, the snow fell unevenly in the garden, leaving the tops of the bed with only half the amount of snow as the rows. The right photo shows the first day that I put the soil dust on the snow (March 22, the first day of spring).

You can see how the snow is starting to rot.

The left photo shows the snow after one day of soil dusting (March 23, 2007). Doesn't look like much after one day of sunshine. The right photo, taken eight days after the initial application (March 30, 2007), shows clear cratering and pitting.

Melt on 30 March in the raised beds, which receive a little less heat from the sun since there's some low brush nearby. Still, you can see considerable melt already going. The air temperatures have not been close to freezing since the first application was done.

Left: April 6. Right: April 9. The melt is really noticeable now. The air temperatures have still not yet gotten above freezing yet.

Snow completely melted with only two days above freezing

The photo on the left shows the snowmelt in the raised beds on April 9. On the right, the backyard garden's soil is exposed to the sun after only two days with temperatures above freezing.

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I can't say where I heard this idea first, but lots of people have told me about throwing ashes from the wood stove on the snow to get it to melt sooner. Up here, you need as much help as you can get to have the sun shine directly onto the soil and start raising soil temperatures.

Last year I experimented by comparing the melting impact of potting soil and steer manure, as well as experimenting with how much is needed to melt snow quickly. I found that the steer manure mix, purchased at Home Depot in bags for $1.99 each, work the best. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the average size of the "dust" generated by the manure mix; the potting soil was often extremely fine when thrown into the air.

I also discovered that lots isn't always the solution. The quickest melting areas had particles ranging in size from a millemeter to four millimeters. Smaller particles didn't seem to melt enough of the surrounding snow, perhaps because the particle isn't large enough to create latent heat. Larger particles and piles of dirt of various sizes actually shaded the snow underneath, reducing snow melt.