I live in upstate SC but was in Hendersonville on Thursday.
The weather was much colder than us just 35 miles south.
The temps in Hendersonville at noon were 30 degrees with a windchill of 15 degrees. BBBRRRRRRRR

And more to come, I am sure. (Snow on Tues. and Wed., they say!)I treasure each sunny day. We still have a small patch of ice/snow here north of Greensboro!! Went to the symposium today and saw lots of slides of lovely plants. We hope for spring!

I'm just thankful that most of this has been snow events and not ice! The fun is going to come when the March winds start ripping trees up out of the ground due to it being so wet, but then the overly saturated ground is better than the drought we've had in recent years. Was actually kind of looking forward to a harsh winter to see which borderline plants were going to hang in there. Guess we'll know soon. So with all the bad there's still a lot of good.

Bigtrout, why turn the soil? Add a layer of newspaper (lasagna style) and then build on top of it. Let the worms do the work, they love it!

I have a good friend from PA who moved to the Hendersonville area this past fall. I keep telling her that she is the one that brought all this cold and snow down south with her! LOL

So she's the reason huh? LOL! This is NOT a typical winter although probably more so than the last few which were really mild.
rootdigger, my containers are on a slope, uphill side I have a 2x6. Downhill side I have a 2x10 and 2x6 stacked so approx. 15". The native soil is poor and extremely rocky so I want to loosen it up and remove the rocks, especially on the uphill side otherwise I won't have but about 5.5" of depth there. This will also allow me to level somewhat before putting in the topsoil, compost etc.

On a short term basis it doesn't seem typical but every 8-10 years we get a rougher winter than normal. Usually when it gets bad, we have less snow days but they are a lot worse. Last time it got bad I was up 36 hours straight transporting people to shelters who had no power and cutting trees (not brush, actual uprooted trees) out of the road. My hope is that with as many chances as we have had to get one of those nasty storms that our luck with the dry snow doesn't run out.

Regarding raised boxes: You have to be careful that you don't create a pit (or bowl)below your box that is going to hold water and drown your roots. When you have poor draining soil, it is a lot better to just build up than dig down, that way when it rains, the extra moisture drains out below, between the ground and the bottom of the box.

IT'S SNOWING AGAIN!!!...............................sigh...

Joining in to whine along w/the best of 'em ..... Brutal winter is an understatement! Temp is dropping here - cold, rainy and gray going colder, rainier and grayer, snow later, as forecast, I'm sure.

Sheesh, if I'd wanted sunlight deprivation, I'd have stayed up North! Even the few sunny, sorta mild days sprinkled thru this winter haven't helped.

Being a slacker, I've never kept a garden journal, but due to certain events last year, I do vividly recall that exactly on March 1st, 2009, the first blossom on my Kwansan cherry tree burst forth rapidly followed by the whole tree exploding w/blossoms. Sigh ...... sure not so this year - all my plants/trees are tight fistedly keeping their buds safe.

Patience is not one of my strong points, but this year it's a necessity - I can deal w/a late spring (if I have to), but just hope we don't leapfrog from winter directly into sizzling summer!

bigtrout, ditto what aezarian said. It's like creating a custom clay bowl when you dig in that stuff. I know it sounds crazy, but building up has really worked for us. I was so shocked at the amount of worms underneath the cardboard the first season we started. We've decided that they must have scraped and hauled away all the top soil before building here. Really bad stuff that wouldn't even grow decent weeds. Now that spot has some of the best soil we've ever had and it's never seen a tiller or shovel.