[gardeners] Thursday in the garden - NOT
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 10 Apr 2003 08:00:50 -0500
Here it is April tenth and we still don't have our spring garden in the
ground. Most years it is in no later than March 15th and sometimes
earlier than that.
Woke up this morning to 39F temperatures at 0530, could see my breath
when Miss Sleepy Dawg and I went out to get the paper. I'm tired of all
this cold/cool weather myself as I've been down with infected sinuses
again for the last week. !@#$%^ pine trees spreading their pollen around
indiscriminately started it and then settled into an infection. Staying
up half the night coughing doesn't allow one to get much done, other
than napping, during the day. My friend, the doctor, gave me a batch of
free antibiotics on Tuesday so I'm starting to recover but not as
quickly as I would like.
The Louisiana iris have been very beautiful this spring, the various
shades of purple, the yellows, the bronzes, and most especially, the
reds. Our start of red iris has finally spread out enough that there is
a three foot circle of those blooming. They also put out a taller bloom
stalk than the others and each stalk has two to four flowers on it. Much
different than the others of the species that we have. I'm afraid I'm
getting the Louisiana iris bug, is there a support group for this
addiction?
The roses are budding out rapidly and we're waiting for the first
blooms, they should open in the next week.
The blueberries are setting fruit, the mayhaws and the peach have
already set fruit with the peaches being about the size of the first
joint of my thumb already. The loquats are still in the very young,
green stage and I anxiously await my first crop of those. I envision a
few jars of loquat jam sitting on the pantry jam shelf. The Fuyu
persimmon blooms are fully open, strange little green things that they
are, and I hope we get fruit this year. I've already bird netted the
tree in hopes of keeping the grackles out of it.
Miz Anne has been harvesting chamomile blossoms on a daily basis and the
crop is getting ahead of her. Noted that the feverfew has reseeded and
there are a few starts of that herb in the herb garden. The oreganos are
needing thinning back as they are running wild in there so the first
warm day I get I'm going to pull a bunch of oregano that has outreached
its bounds. Those will be potted up in four inch pots and set aside to
go to a local nursery that often buys herbs from me. Also noticed half a
dozen epazote plants up and growing so will have to watch them carefully
to prohibit reseeding again and getting 40 gazillion plants growing
everywhere.
Cold weather and sickness not withstanding life is good.
George