Garden Update:
We’ve had a long summer, an incredibly mild fall (seemed like summer-lite), but of course, pleasantness rarely lasts forever. We’ve had our eyes on the weather since mid-October, when we usually get a first hard frost. Not this year, kiddies. Finally, it looked like last week was the week.
I think of gardening in long range terms. You have to when you’re my age. A lot of unexpectedness can pop up and ruin short term plans. So I have been preparing my houseplants for their return to the interior of the house. This prep includes trimming leaves and branches, treating the soil and leaves for bugs, and preparing room inside the house for the “jungle’s” return.
I have a LOT of large houseplants. Most of them are angel trumpets (native to NorCal). I started growing angel trumpets in Michigan because I was told they don’t grow there. (During the summer, yes. Outside. But they can’t withstand freezing temperatures.) The growing conditions in Colorado are even more severe. There’s too much light, not enough oxygen, and humidity doesn’t exist here. Also, we deal with wide swings in temperatures. Nighttime lows could be in the 20s and the next day’s highs in the 60’s. A lot of people can’t tolerate it, although as with everything, you can survive quite nicely on proper planning.
I am also growing a lot of plumeria (best grown in Florida or Hawaii). I have a couple that are more than 10 years old (yes, I dragged them here from Michigan, where they began their lives), and a few that are going on year 2. The two older plants are taller than I am. Even in this harsh weather, I’ve gotten one to bloom a couple of times. Here! In Colorado. That tells you something about my persistence.
It seems like a lot of work for plants that don’t belong here, are difficult to maintain, and in the case of one plumeria, the trunk of the plant has been eaten by a squirrel or similar critter. It is. But it’s a labor of love.
Last week, I pulled up all the tomatoes, after picking the biggest green ones. They’ll eventually turn red and I won’t have to buy any at the grocery store. We have a fairly small yard, but the vegetable garden takes up about 1/3 of it, and you can grow a lot of produce if you plan it right. Those of you that have followed me as the Urban Guerilla Gardener know that you can plant edibles anyplace (and I do). I ended up with more large pumpkins than I wanted, just enough pie pumpkins for Thanksgiving and Christmas, way, way, WAY too many acorn squash, lots of potatoes, onions, and chard. Unfortunately, something ate the tops of my cabbages off (raccoons?) so there’s no sauerkraut in our immediate future. But life has been good, and the garden has been plentiful. I’ve been canning and canning, but thankfully, I’m finished now.
The end of it.
To put the icing on the cake, it snowed last night, the official turn of the season. It’s all over now.
And so with the turn of the seasons, it might be time to turn to back to the creative. It’s just too cold outside to do anything else.
