Or, she's getting ready to. We've had unusually warm weather for April. I'm sure the Cubs are thrilled to be playing in warm weather, but the results for some of our plants could be disastrous.
I see that tulips I planted last fall are up and ready to bloom, but today we are supposed to slip into the 50s as a cold front passes, and by the end of the week, we'll be flirting with freezing weather at night. I hope the tulips can deal with it. They never last long here, so I'd like to have at least ONE season of bloom.
This past weekend, Dear Husband and I were talking about the fact that it was time to trim back shrubs. I agreed with him, and went on to do some chores that had been waiting for me. Today, as I looked out the window, I realized just how right he had been. I wanted to cut back a shrub that was encroaching on the veggie garden. It's already leafing out, so the job will be a little harder now.
Last summer DH covered the raised veggie boxes for me with black plastic, in an effort to kill off a weed that had taken hold. If the weather allows, this weekend I'll uncover those boxes and add compost to them, and we'll hope for the best. I'd like to have room for more tomatoes and salad greens. If nothing else, I'll plant potatoes, and hope the greenery from the potatoes will compete with the weeds. (I know.....wishful thinking!)
Comments (11)
Bogie and Cop Car are related...and seem to have the same problem with my comment censor. This is what Bogie had to say about Mother Nature:
I don't think those temps will hurt the tulips - it would be more the lack of water than anything.
My tulips haven't started to come up, which means I probably lost the lot of them over the winter. I don't know why I bother, I always loose anything that's not a perennial or an iris!
Bogie
Posted by Buffy | April 21, 2005 3:18 PM
Posted on April 21, 2005 15:18
My tulips are coming up and so are my irises. I find that irises are very risilient, which is a good thing, as they are my favorite flower! Just plant more bulbs!
Posted by Susan | April 21, 2005 6:43 PM
Posted on April 21, 2005 18:43
Susan--Have you SEEN how many bulbs Bogie has planted? (Of course, I count irises as a bulb even though Buffy keeps trying to educate me into calling them rhizomes (or is it tubers or corms?
Buffy should have known that I wouldn't remember very long, didn't you?) Bogie has planted kazillions of things that don't grow from seeds!
Posted by Cop Car | April 21, 2005 9:16 PM
Posted on April 21, 2005 21:16
I expect to see LOTS of pictures of all those things, bogie!
Posted by buffy | April 21, 2005 11:17 PM
Posted on April 21, 2005 23:17
Susan, our tulips are up, and about half to two-thirds of them are open. And tomorrow we go back to freezing weather! lol We still have daffodils open, and the small viburnum is in bloom. It has a heavenly scent! I think Iris may be my favorite flower in the gardens. I have more than 20 varieties. This past winter was hard on them. I've had to add compost around them to keep them from heaving out of the ground. The peonies are coming up, and the chives are HUGE! I'm happy to tell you that the pineapple mint that I wintered over in the garage made it, and so did two roses and some chrysanthemums. YEA!
Posted by Buffy | April 21, 2005 11:50 PM
Posted on April 21, 2005 23:50
Hey girl, the temp is going to drop here too but i don't think it will freez! 81* today 60* tomorrow! I wanted to work in the garden this weekend but don't look good! Tell you a funy,years ago we came here on vacation from Chicago. My mother-inlaw ask me to go out inthe garden and get some potatos. I went out and looked all aroun and gave up! I went back in and asked her where are they? Every one started laughing but me! I din't no they grew under ground!
Posted by Joe Smitherman | April 22, 2005 11:00 AM
Posted on April 22, 2005 11:00
We've been having 21 degrees (C) by day and almost zero by night. Our tulips are coping well.
We too have an invasion of bindweed in our raised beds - considering that we lined them with weed-control membrane when Mr BW built them a couple of years ago, I really don't know how it managed to get in.
And how do weeds manage to position themselves right among or alongside plants with similar shaped leaves?
Posted by Blue Witch | April 22, 2005 1:41 PM
Posted on April 22, 2005 13:41
No I have not SEEN Bogie's irises. I will check her blog. Please post pictures. The only spring I can enjoy is via pictures on the internet!
Posted by Susan | April 22, 2005 5:52 PM
Posted on April 22, 2005 17:52
I have thistles in a bed of lilies. If they were just amidst them, I wouldn't hesitate to go after the thistles, but they are right next to the stems! And....there's some darned weed in the middle of my iris. I'll get those out this year when I divide the iris, but you know that I'll disturb more weed seed when I do. It's a never ending circle of combat: US against the WEEDS!
Posted by Buffy | April 22, 2005 5:52 PM
Posted on April 22, 2005 17:52
Grr, Joe...lucky you with the warmer weather! We're supposed to have a snow flurry tonight. :-(
About the potatoes....I can laugh with you. My father had never grown them, so I didn't have a clue about what they would look like. I finally got to grow them with him the year before he died, and he resolved the great potato mystery for me. *S* Have you ever tried growing them in a bale of hay???
Posted by Buffy | April 22, 2005 6:05 PM
Posted on April 22, 2005 18:05
Joe: Thanks for the huge laugh that you and your potato story provided. I needed that!
Blue Witch: Bind weed roots can overcome nearly anything. The roots can go amazingly deep and, since the seeds are born on fluff, they can find the smallest crevice in which to set up housekeeping.
Buffy: In the end, the weeds win. They're like cockroaches. They'll be around 30 billion years after all humanity has turned to dust.
Posted by Cop Car | April 22, 2005 7:49 PM
Posted on April 22, 2005 19:49