Decorating with lights!

Lately, I have been hearing a lot of folks make loud declarations against anyone who puts up their Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving.  I figure like this.  If I want to decorate for Christmas in July, it is nobody's business but my own!  I, personally, love Christmas!  I love the spirit of the entire season!  I love how everyone is nicer, friendlier, calmer during the few weeks of Christmas.  So if I can extend all of that human goodwill, then, hey, why not?  Maybe extending the holidays a bit would do the world a tiny bit of good.  Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward men should be year round and not for twelve days in December.  But, go figure.  You cannot extend it at the end of the season as that would run slap into the New Year when we are all about making those resolutions that none of us ever intend to keep.  Lets just start Christmas in July and include all the holidays between the Fourth of July and New Year's Day in the Christmas holidays!  When you think about it..for six months, folks will be calling out "Be of good cheer!", "Have a wonderful day!" or "Peace be with you!" and actually mean it!  Now that, my dear friends, could never be wrong!

Still, I must admit that other than the tiny cedar tree in honor of the new grandbaby, the Little Bayou House is devoid of decorations.  This makes me a bit sad.  For one reason or another, the decorating has been postponed time after time until here it is the end of November and still no tree graces the living room!  Egads!  This will never do!  When the kids were younger and still at home, we decorated when we felt like it.  One year when my daughter was ill, we put up the Christmas tree on Halloween night simply because she asked.  It was fun!  We were making memories!

Today, Michael put up some the Christmas lights.  Or, perhaps I should say, he put down some of the lights.  After a stormy night on the Bayou, the weather is supposed to turn cooler.  The freezing temperatures might hold off for one more night but Ole Jack Frost just might pay a visit.  In preparation for the drop in temperature, we put the window panes back on the hotbed that houses the yellow squash plants.  Not satisfied that the glass would hold enough heat, Michael pulled out two long, long strands of lights.  Now my squash plants are surrounded in tiny, white lights! The lights put out enough heat when under the plants to warm them and keep them from feeling the effects of the pending frost.  My hotbed is decorated for Christmas!  I guess it is a start...and I do love yellow squash!

I do plan on decorating as soon as my daughter gets here.  Elizabeth always has a special knack for knowing just where things should go!  I love Christmas!  I love colored lights on the tree!  I love manger scenes, Baby Jesus and angels!  I love Santa and elves!  I love stockings hung by the chimney with care!  I love the carols, the holly berries, the scent of evergreen, the garland, red bows and ornaments!  I love Christmas!  Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward men..Merry Christmas!...oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Winter Solstice! (And any other wonderful day to celebrate in between!)  Put up those decorations even if they are only to keep those plants from freezing...and be happy doing it!

Bring on the cold!

I am ready for winter!  My garden is ready for winter!  On a whim, I planted some yellow squash in my winter garden.  Perhaps this was not the brightest thing to do but I had a hankering for at least a few more fresh squash this year before the cold weather took the plants.  In the past few years, we have not gotten even a heavy frost before Christmas so I figured I had a chance. Well now!  That old weatherman has decided that we might get a bit of winter a little earlier this year.  We might actually get down to freezing before Thanksgiving!  Oh, no!  My squash!  This would never do. So, I did what any good mother would do in a situation like this..I called on my son's abilities.  Surely he could find some way to protect my tender plants.

Sure enough, Michael came through with flying colors!  When I asked for his assistance, he shrugged his shoulders and said that it could be done.  Sons are the greatest! (Then, it could be that he likes squash as much as I do.)  Anyway, he got busy with that hammer and saw again and made me the neatest greenhouse/hotbed for my squash.  The row now has a nice box built around it and is fitted with some recycled windows as a roof.  This should suffice during even the coldest weather with the addition of a few well-placed lights for added warmth.  The windows will allow plenty of sunlight and since they are not mounted, I will have access to care for the plants.  The windows can easily be lifted off so I can fertilize, water and weed the plants and also pick the squash as they mature.  I am thrilled and I can only imagine that those little plants will certainly appreciate the effort once Jack Frost decides to visit the Bayou.

Speaking of winter gardens, we ate our first pickings of the mustard greens.  Later this week, the turnip greens will be thinned and those greens will provide another meal. Carrots, beets, cabbages, collards, chard and SQUASH will all be on the menu this winter.  Yep, I am ready for winter (and the delightful treats from the garden!).

Flying Windows!

Yesterday's storm had me in a tizzy!  The high winds that knocked Mama Dove for a loop and blew her babies to the ground, also did a tad bit of damage to the gardens.  I was extremely proud that so many of the herb seeds that I had planted in the new coldframe were sprouting.  In the past, I have had difficulty getting some of the purchased seeds to ever sprout.  The seeds would just sit there and rot without ever even trying to turn into that nice plant that was on the seed packet front!  Lazy seeds are not for me!  I want flourishing plants to grow from those tiny dots!  This year, with an exception of the Anise Seeds, the herbs were doing well.  Their hotbed seemed to be agreeing with them and they were all growing well.  Then came "THE" storm!  That nasty bunch of winds, torrential rains and then dropping temperatures was just not conducive to a plant growth spurt!

One of the coldframe windows smashed by the high winds.

Actually, as I stood peering out that window watching the treetops bend, I had the unsettling experience of seeing my coldframe being ripped apart by the wind.  All five windows became airborne at the same time!  They twisted and turned in the wind and then crash-landed on top of the squash and radish plants!  Miraculously, only one large pane of glass shattered and then only because of the metal frame of another window came down corner first on it.  But that was enough!  I just knew that my tiny herb plants were goners!  Still, I had no time to even survey the damage as I was in the rescue business!  Those baby birds were of high importance and the garden would just have to wait.

Seeing how the window tossed by the winds gouged out the ground, I am glad I was  safe inside!

This morning, I picked up the pieces of broken glass and gathered together the other four windows.  They seemed intact so I would reuse them.  The hotbed seemed to be in pretty good shape even without its glass top.  The tiny herbs held their own and did not give up the ghost!  They were not washed down into the Bayou!  This morning, the windows were all replaced and a new one added.  Large boards were placed on top of the glass in hopes that the storm predicted for later tonight will not do more damage.

The tiny herb plants are all snug in their revamped coldframe!

All in all, the damage was not as bad as I had first thought.  It seems that plants are pretty resilient.  They can take a pretty rough beating and still survive.  I suppose this just proves that idiom of "What does not kill you will only stand to make you stronger!"  After the storm yesterday...I fully expect to have plants with superhero powers!

No Spring Chicken..

I have finally come to terms with this aging process thing. I have had the realization that I cannot do what I am used to doing.  In the past, if something needed tending, I did it..no questions asked.  Now, the joints creak, the muscles ache and I move a bit slower at times. I am no spring chicken! This said, I am far from giving up what I like to do!  I am still bound and determined to garden even if it means moaning and groaning the day after spading up the ground.  It is nice that I have Michael here to do most of the heavier work like hauling the sacks of fertilizer from the driveway around to the back of the house where the garden is situated.  He hoists those sacks like nobody's business!   This makes life easier for me!

Speaking of making life easier, he did just such thing recently.  Last year, he built me a coldframe or hotbed.  I was happy!  This year, I am happier!  The coldframe has been elevated to a decent height so I do not have to be on my hands and knees to work in it.  Michael lifted the entire thing up off the ground, put a bottom in it and stuck it on posts.  Now it is at just above table-height and is much easier to reach.  This was actually done because ants and mice found the coldframe to be a nice place to spend the winter when it was flat on the ground.  Most of my seeds and tiny seedlings were eaten by the critters far before they were large enough to plant in the garden rows.  The coldframe will serve as a long planter after the seedlings have been transplanted.  Herbs should grow well in the eight inch deep soil that the coldframe holds.  He lined the bottom with a garden liner so with reasonable watering, the plants should not dry out quickly.

With the weather warming, I probably did not need to plant the seeds in the coldframe at all. Still it was nice not having to crouch down to sow the minuscule herb seeds.  With the high winds of the past few weeks, those seeds would have most likely wound up in the Bayou!  The herb seeds themselves were a gift from my daughter and son-in-law.  Elizabeth and Robbie sent the packets of seeds for my recent birthday.  Most were in the familiar little packets of about a hundred seeds but one was umm...quite large!  I had mentioned that I was going to plant catnip if I could find seeds.  She beat me to it and sent some!  The pack contained five thousand seeds!  What am I going to do with five thousand catnip plants?  Hopefully, some of my neighbors will want a few plants..or a bunch of plants!  Otherwise, Ms. Put, the Bayou Cat sure better like catnip!

Window of Opportunity....

Spring is here! Oh, yeah..not yet..there are supposedly several more weeks of winter but I am too excited to just sit inside and wait for the official announcement of the seasonal change. This morning, I decided it was time to plant my tomato and pepper seeds. This probably should have been done two weeks ago but at that time, I really had no place to plant them. This weekend, Son built me a "hotbed"! YAY!!!! For any non-gardeners, a hotbed is a plot of soil that is supplemented with manure and is enclosed by glass. The rotting manure heats the plot of ground and makes it conducive to starting seedlings. This hotbed is used to force start seeds so the plants can be set into the ground as soon as the weather is warm enough to support them. I am late getting the hotbed but I definitely appreciate it being built for me! This hotbed is about eighteen inches wide and maybe twelve feet long. It has some old windows placed on top to allow the sunshine to beam down on my seedlings! I have sowed Cherry Tomatoes, Beefsteak Tomatoes and Rutgers' Tomatoes. There are also Habanero Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers and California Wonder Bell Peppers nestled in rows between the tomatoes! I had a bit of a problem with ants in one end of the hotbed so that was doused with vinegar in hopes of eradicating them. Once that end is clear of the critters, I will put in Eggplants and some more Tomatoes. (And..yes, I realize that is a lot of tomatoes but even though I canned quite a bit of tomato sauce and ketchup this past summer, the shelf is becoming bare. Time to replenish!) Now my seeds are in the ground an all I have to do is wait until they are large enough to set out into the garden! Son and I also put in three rows of Green Peas. They are along the fences to allow for the vines. Last Spring, we made the mistake of planting the peas in the unfenced garden and the rabbits kept them trimmed to the ground. That is a lesson learned and I was not about to make that mistake again! The unfenced garden will have to be planted in squash and cucumbers since these do not seem to be on the "Bunny Menu"!

I did notice today that the Peach Trees have come to the conclusion that it is Spring, too! Just this weekend, there were no blossoms and now several of the trees are in full bloom! I am so looking forward to fresh peaches again this year! This past summer we picked several bushels. These were eaten fresh, canned as slices and halves and the rest were made into peach jam and jelly! Hopefully, we will have another good crop in a couple of months. Hopefully, these trees are not jumping the gun with their blooms like I might be with seeding the garden! Hopefully, there will be no more hard freezes this season! Hopefully, I am not pushing my luck!