Paint

So we've got a first coat up on the back of the house and this is what it looks like. After a lot of thought and no small amount of paint samples, we settled on a very light grey with dark purple trim. We think it looks pretty awesome. From the road it almost looks black and white, but when you get close enough you realize it's sort of an eggplant color. Doing the work isn't so bad but it's quickly getting warmer out and soon it'll be pretty miserable to work in the sun, so we better get the rest of it done soon.

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We also finally got a fourth bed in the garden, today.

There's still a fair bit left over from the winter, like the salad greens (the best part of the winter garden), some peas, scallions, chard, and spinach. I just pulled up all the mustard greens and filled about three quarts for freezing. The spinach wasn't as productive as I'd like given the space it needs and how long it takes, so I'll probably skip it next year. Peas and carrots both went off well enough to justify doing again. Chard finally filled it, but I'm not sure we'll do it again either. Scallions definitely. So far for the spring/summer plants we've got about 22 peppers going, from bells to sweet to very hot. I'm hopeful that we'll get enough bells for eating fresh around here, sweets for eating fresh and pickling, and hots for pickling and drying for soups and other dishes. We've got two tomatoes in a bed, and a few more in a sunny spot in the front yard, so we'll see how they turn out. Otherwise there's one okra plant and some basil until the greens quit giving us all the salad we can eat. Then I'd like to get in some squash and eggplant and cukes. And there's probably space for some more herbs out there now too rather than keeping them all in pots on the slab. Cheers.

Carrots

Plumbing and Snap Peas

Phlox blossoms in the front yard (totally unrelated to the rest of the post)

Plumbing and snap peas: improbable combination, I know, but that's what I want to write about this time. I'll do the not-so-pretty first (the plumbing), though I'm sure for our brothers and other schadenfreude-ists out there, it will be the more interesting of the two topics. After all, the subtitle of the blog is "misadventures in home maintenance" and so far it seems like we've only blogged about gardening. So, last month I noticed a black spot on the caulking around the base of the toilet that seemed new or at least bigger than I remembered. When I followed the bead of caulk around to the back of the toilet, I found a giganto black spot and squishy linoleum. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it wasn't going to be good. Turned out to be a leaky wax ring, which, to repair, involved taking the toilet off the floor (bolts were rusty and one had to be broken off), dealing with the maggot-like squigglers throwing a party beneath the toilet (just under our feet! yay!), scraping the old squiggler-infested wax ring off, positioning the toilet juuusssst-right over the new bolts (had to buy a second set because the first set was too short), and then cutting the bolts off to make them short enough to fit the cap over (yes, you read that right: we had to buy long bolts just to go and cut them short). This whole process was made much more fun by virtue of the fact that the area we had to work in was maybe two feet wide between the tub and the sink. But, we got it done and it hasn't leaked since. I consider that a success.

On to snap peas: we got 'em. Lots of 'em. We're freezing some and eating the rest sauteed over high heat in soy sauce. Yum. Otherwise, the greens are getting big, the carrots are about as big around as my thumb, and we ate our first green top onion just the other day. We're thinking now is about the right time to put in a fourth bed for tomatoes and peppers.

Thaw!

The freezing temps are finally over - for two weeks it was no colder in Michigan than it was in Florida. We both got pretty sick of covering the plants every night, but it seems to have been worth it since most are alright. Not great, mind you. And the peas are in sad shape. But, all things considered, I think the garden weathered the worst winter in 25 years fairly well. Today was back to sunshine and 70 degrees. Next project - straightening the edgers (small job) and painting the house (huge job).

Hard Freeze Warning

Bad news. The cold snap that's affecting 2/3 of the country reaches down to the Florida panhandle, too. So we've been covering the plants every night - amazing that a thin little tarp can make that much difference - and keeping our fingers crossed. We might have lost the banana tree entirely. It was so brown and withered we decided to hack it off and let the plant concentrate on generating new growth rather than trying to revive dying limbs. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's a war zone in our back yard and the fight is on for our winter garden.

After getting thoroughly lambasted by all our family at Christmas for not posting since October, we're finally back to it. Part of the reason for the lapse was due to end of semester and holiday craziness, and part was due to the lack of things to post. I mean, is it really that exciting to read that our carrots have grown a quarter inch? Happily we now have some garden news worth writing home about: our first harvest. The salad greens needed thinning so we grabbed up some of the baby greens, added parsley, cilantro, chives, and fennel from our herb garden, and had a nice little salad, made all the more tasty because we grew it.

Gardening seems somewhat magical to me; I marvel at the fact that I can throw some ten-cent seeds into the ground and weeks later pull up vegetables that I'd pay ten dollars for at the grocery store. It makes me realize how far removed I am from the daily existence of just a couple generations past. Our grocery stores would seem (and, indeed, are) far more magical to my great-grandma than a simple vegetable garden would, and yet it's the garden that amazes me.

Camelias in October?

Okay, so I heard a million times that the weather in Florida was going to be different. Everyone warned us, but we were dubious. Sure, it might stay warmer longer (which it did) and there might not be as many cold(ish) days as in Wilmington, but how different can it really be? We were still in the South after all, and at the beach, no less.

Last week convinced me. Camelias are in bloom. Azaleas are in bloom. Wilmington's Azalea Festival is in April, not October. It seems that the combination of several 90 degree days (yep, in mid-October) and clearing off the vines and ferns that had been choking them off was enough to set the bushes into full bloom. My Pedagogy professor swears her azaleas bloom twice every year, so apparently this isn't a fluke.

Now, however, we've got the best of both worlds. The temps have dipped into the 60s and 70s and flowers are gorgeous.

On another note, now that the tree is finally out of the back yard we've started on the butterfly garden which we've planned to grow up around, on, and in the remaining stump. Of course, we won't get too many butterflies this time of year, but we can work on the area in preparation for spring. Y'all know how I love my planning : )