All tucked in for the winter
Need less plants. In my defense, I have a couple of trees I did not plant this year due to the extreme heat and drought…Also, I propagated some plants and now have to overwinter them.
…but the good news is they are now all tucked in. In the winter we turn our screened in porch into a greenhouse by putting up 6 mil plastic. Every year we learn a little more about how to secure it. LOL. The first year we used a thousand staples and it did not work well. The plastic pulled away because of high winds and it took a looong time to remove all of the staples the following spring.
Now we use a combination of wires and staples. Getting better…but have some ideas for next year…
Blooms blooms blooms
So much blooming this November. This is a real treat. Some years we have had a hard freeze by now and there are no blooms. This is a nice change, especially after the brutal hot, dry spring/summer we had.
Hope springs eternal!
It is that time of year and I love it. Time to plant seeds for Fall/Winter veggies and herbs. Experts don’t know if it will be cold or not, but they do think it will be dry…So, we are going to do an abbreviated garden: Romaine lettuce, Crawford lettuce, radish, Chinese broccoli and cilantro.
Planted all on 10/31. Watered every day with rain water. Lettuce, broccoli and radish sprouted on 11/3. Cilantro on 11/11. I am always amazed by the sprouting of a seed. It is really a miracle
Now it is time to thin!
Romaine lettuce and radish 
Romaine lettuce and radish 
radish 
Chinese broccoli 
Crawford lettuce 
Cilantro 
Moringa tree and seeds!
Last year was the first year that our Moringa trees produced seed pods, but it was late in the year and was not sure if they matured completely before we had to bring them in for the winter… This year I know they did. They dried up and even split open while still attached to the tree. Can’t wait to try to sprout them next year.
So much to do before the first freeze
Where has the time gone? We are already in November? So much to do. I said that if my plumeria did not bloom this year I was going to give up on it. Well, it bloomed (see post about it on July 17) so now I have to figure out what to do with it this winter. Not cold hearty at all and it is 6 feet tall.
This plant was given to me by a friend from work. I asked him and he said that I can prune it and replant the pieces in the spring. I’ll need to let the cutting dry out a bit and store in the shade in the garage. I did a bit of googling and jumped in. Here are the results. After letting the cuttings dry out, I put them in a cardboard box in the garage.
Here are the before and after photos. One unexpected surprise was that the pot was full of ants. I like ants. They eat chiggers. So I pruned the plant and removed all the leaves. Then I tipped the plant over on its side. In about two days, all of the ants abandoned the pot and I was able to safely remove the last two stems. I have no idea where they went.
