Endings and Beginnings

   The day started out cloudy, cool and with high humidity.  Any normal person would have most likely snuggled deeper under the blankets and said "Let things take care of themselves for a while."  Not me.  As soon as the sun started peeping over the pines on the far side of the Bayou, I headed to the citrus trees to see if any could be salvaged after that spell of cold last month.  Our plants, like us, down here in the Deep South are not accustomed to days on end of freezing temperatures.  The trees look bad.  So...I started clearing the dead branches in hopes of salvaging what I can.

  One thing about the cold is that it makes even evergreens like citrus lose their leaves.  That loss uncovers a lot of things.  While working on the trees, I made careful note of any "keepers" and let the branch stay.  Keepers being egg cases of beneficial critters. There are both endings and beginnings to be found here. One lemon tree had several nice praying mantis egg cases.  The cases were still firm and showed no signs of damage so I was careful to leave each one.  Hopefully, the cold did not bother the eggs and hopefully no other critter will come along and raid the case.  I can use as many of these as will hatch.  They are indeed friends of the garden.

  Like I said, the citrus trees look bad but perhaps not all is lost.  Some still have "green" closer to the main stalk.  Our crop may be pitiful this next fall but that is to be understood.  It does make me glad that I froze gallons of the juice and made marmalade and jelly with the rest of the fruit.  We will have plenty to keep us happy until the trees recuperate.  Now if we can get through the next several months without a repeat performance by Mother Nature.  I love winter but not when it dips down cold enough for long enough to damage the trees.  For now, I will happily trim the trees and guard the egg cases of the garden friends.