Re: [gardeners] steroid injections
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Fri, 07 Apr 2000 07:32:44 -0500
Allen Merten wrote:
>
> Hi George,
> Is your VA hospital in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, or Shreveport?
None of the above. I go to the Alexandria, LA hospital. New Orleans and
Shreveport are the two other cities who have them. It's strange that one
wasn't built in this area because we have a lion's share of the states
population here. I reckon the one Alex was built to serve the many rural
parishes there better.
> Are the Louisiana wildflowers in bloom? The ones in Texas are bustin'
> out all over. It makes the ride to Austin to get my steroid injections a
> little more bearable.
The roadsides here seldom get mowed so the red clover and coreopsis were
in bloom. Those are about the only two I can identify at 70 mph. Miz
Anne told me there were others blooming too but we didn't stop.
> The Bluebonnets are having a much better spring than most had predicted
> or expected. They have to overwinter as a rosette, grow and bloom in the
> spring. The drought last fall was what had created the doubt about all the
> wildflowers that have that same growth habit.
> I'm glad to hear that your injections are helping you. I have had 2 sets
> of 3 in my cervical spine. The second was today. The first one helped quite
> a bit. I didn't have as many stingers this week. My right hand worked better
> too.
> I can't tell how much good Thursdays injections worked. I had PT
> Wednesday, "deep massage". It's blunt trauma, lots of pain Wednesday night,
> Thursday and this morning.
Every time you talk about your problems I get the cold shivers. I had
back surgery for disc removal 26 years and haven't had a problem since.
My osteoarthritis isn't even bad enough for meds yet and I'm glad. I
have several friends who are in the same boat you are so I'm thankful my
problems aren't that severe. I don't think I would have your courage in
the face of such adversity. Keep going buddy.
Can't sleep, so I'm catching up on email.
Understand that. Miz Anne got up before dawn cracked the first time and
woke Sleepy Dawg and I up. She's off to Houston for a batch of
watercolor seminars today and tomorrow and will be staying at our son's
house. I may have to move back to Houston as her art is doing so well
there. Would certainly hate to give up low taxes, cheap water, and a lot
of friends to move back though. Maybe I'll just get a newer car, one
that doesn't have 150K miles on it.
> We have been eating cabbage, broccoli, turnips, and onions from the
> garden. It looks like we will get Kohl Rabi and cauliflower before it gets
> to hot. The Kohl Rabi is showing bulbing of the stem. The cauliflower has
> begun to hold it's leaves almost vertically like it does when it starts to
> head. Onions are tennis ball sized. We may get some soft ball sized onions
> by June after all. The broccoli plants that have had the center head cut are
> producing side heads now. I have several heads of Rio Verde cabbage to cut.
Your late winter/spring must be cooler than ours. We have to plant those
veggies in early fall to get crops before they bolt. Our broccoli this
winter just totally outperformed any other time. We got central heads
that were 9 or 10 inches across and tightly packed. The side shoots just
went on and on until late March when they started bolting. We ate all we
could, gave a bunch to a soup kitchen and some neighbors and put up more
than 30 vac sealed bags in the freezer. Same with Swiss Chard, we're
still harvesting that on a every other day basis. Good thing we like it.
We only grow about 12 cabbages a year and they all did well. The
kohlrabi's were big as baseballs and just as sweet as they can be. I put
some up in the freezer for Miz Anne but I only eat them raw. We've never
been able to get onions to bulb up so only grow the green ones. I even
lost my shallots this winter, got too dry I guess. We can grow both
spring and fall garlic so do a lot of those as companion plants. I've
been growing my own bunching onion sets from seed for the last two
years. Plant them in early spring and then start thinning and setting
out in the garden where there is space available. This will go on all
year so we always have lots of green onions. I chop and freeze a bunch
for cooking and have dried some for dehydrated soup stocks.
> Judy has promised to make a bunch of egg rolls to freeze. She makes good
> ones, too!! It's usually a close fight when the crowd is here, to get a
> share of them. Our daughter made some cabbage rolls out of the first cabbage
> that we cut. I surprised her when she got the first one. I love cabbage.
> I've found only one way that I don't like it fixed. Cole slaw made with
> mayo. Horrid stuff!! We did find a BBQ place in Austin that makes a cole
> slaw more like a wilted salad. That's pretty good.
I make a good Thai spring roll. We had a Thai neighbor in Saudi and she
taught a bunch of us how to make them from scratch including the
wrapper. Much easier to buy wrappers here though. Used to make up a
couple of hundred for the freezer when we knew our son was coming for
the summer. They would all be gone in a month or two along with several
hundred burritos and tamales.
Hey, I make cole slaw with Miracle Whip free, not a lot, and it's pretty
good. I like it crunchy, not juicy.
> The tomatos and peppers are all blooming. Can't wait for them to start
> getting ripe.
> Rip off Prices:
> HEB, a local grocery chain, had a little plastic bag of cherry tomatos, 10
> oz., $2.99. I could have held them all in one hand. Not organic, just
> tomatos.
> Seed catalog has an offer of 10 little seed potatos( certified) for
> $7.95. The blurb says you should expect to get about 30 lbs. from them. That
> is some kind of high price for seed potatos. I pay 39-49 cents per pound for
> certified seed potatos.
> The G-90 sweet corn and green beans are doing well too.
> Happy Gardening,
> Allen
> Bastrop Co., SE Central Tx.
> Zone 8
Nyah, nyah, the Burbank tomatoes, started from seed in January have
half-dollar sized tomatoes and the others have the little babies showing
now. We actually wintered over a Yellow Bell tomatoe and it's blooming
again as are the wintered over chiles. We've had about 10 inches of rain
in the last month and everything is growing. That's it from Sulphur, LA.
George