End of a Season

It is the end of a season after tomorrow night. We should get our first frost and all the tropicals I keep outside year round will hit the dust. I will mulch them well and wave by till spring comes round once again.

The drought has been horrid! I can't even describe how bad it is to those who have never been in something like this 100 year happening. I'm lucky as I live on a wetland and even though it is much dryer than normal, the trees have been taking it all in stride. There roots will just go down further to seek the water they need to survive.

The pond is down by 3' but all the fish are surviving. The last rain storm brought it up about a foot once it was all said and done and I was very surprised. If we don't start getting some rain soon, though...it will start to go down again. We have only lost two fish through it all and both were due to Great Blue Herons trying to spear them and dropping them due to their size and weight.

I have started my winter garden and have garlic, lettuces, and spinach growing well. They are in pots out front and on the back porch for easy snipping while cooking. Just the thing for a sandwich or quick salad.

I am now getting deep into Square Foot Gardening (TM) and bought some lumber to make my first 4'X4' raised bed. I will enclose some pics as soon as it is up and going, but that may not be until spring. I will probably just over-sow it with annual rye grass till spring with some pansies here and there for a spot of cheery color.

Speaking of pansies; I have four hanging baskets full and about ten more to plant up so I better get on the ball with them. How i would love to have the health and energy of youth! Ah, well....I must just take life as it comes and rejoice in my good days. Later gator!

DROUGHT AND SUCH

This has been the worst drought in over a hundred years for we here in most of Alabama. It has been devastating to the farmers, but of course you don't hear much of that on the National news...who cares, right? It's more important to talk of war and elections. You S.O.B.'s !!!

The shop is ready to be poured now. Just waiting on the cement guys to get out here. Hopefully today because it's supposed to rain tomorrow.

Db has changed the layout of the shop and will have only two garage doors on the outside plus one entrance door. It would require too much fill to have the other two doors on the side as that side is low and would have to be raised up by about 12 truckloads of fill dirt...mucho $$. He is going to put a garage door on the inside of the shop where the paint booth will be.

As far as any gardening goes, I have been potting up the Trachys I started this winter from seed. They are growing quickly and will be ready to pot up to gallons come February for the nursery.

I also dug and potted up some of the Alocasia 'Borneo Giants" I was growing in the ground around our home. They seem to be happy with the change and are taking off like a rocket! One of them by the front porch had toppled over and when I dug it up to see what was going on, I found the beginning of rot from the nibbling of a mouse or vole. I cut out all the rot, let it dry for a day and potted it up. It is now happy as a Lark and growing like mad in my master bath solarium where it will over-winter along with many more tropicals.

My Dahlia 'Imperialis,' also known as 'Tree Dahlias', are shooting up like weeds and should bloom come November if we don't get a frost. I am going to dig them after they are finished blooming so I can divide them. I want to pot some up for sale this spring either at the nursery or on EBAY.

I have a ton of work to do today so better get off and get going. I will endeavor to write in this blog more often in the future for anyone who happens to keep up with my musings. Later gator! deb @ The Bamboo Jungle N Gardens

More Shop Talk

The shops construction is under way. Since I last posted it was graded again, a special fill brought in and leveled. Next, the foundation forms will be built next week and the concrete poured. Db showed me a plan on paper last night and it will be very nice at 30' X 50' with four bays and an entrance door. Two in front and two on the long side facing the highway. What you see in this picture is my greenhouse and office/gift shop. We are having the buildings all painted green to blend in as we did with our guest cottage by the pond.

I am going to take some pictures today so I can keep a running pictorial journal for Db and later, present him with a collage of the process for his office wall. Speaking of offices, he will be moving his present office out here after the building is completed. It is similar to the one in this picture only smaller and he has had it for about 18 years. The one you see here is around 15 years old. As you can see they last and last if kept up like any building.

With all the outbuildings we have now, we have a "sort of" Compound and I will be landscaping it in such a way that all are connected with paths and small courtyard gardens. The courtyards will be enclosed by hedges, gates, arbors covered in the many wild vines that grow in abundance here with no help from me. Muscadines, Passion Flowers, Honeysuckle, Ivy...just to name a few.

We recently had to cut down a natural arbor that had been produced after one of the many hurricanes we experienced a few years ago. A tree had toppled part way over and Muscadines clamored over the Oak Tree and latched onto a Willow tree on the other side. Db loved it so much that he left it be and would prune it only enough to keep it passable by vehcles. It just killed me to see all the un-ripe fruit tumbling down to the driveway as he sawed and pulled away at what nature had made with no help from man. We will let it grow over again as soon as the big trucks are through with their comings and goings.

The drought and 100+ degree temps. have pretty much put gardening to a screeching halt, other than keeping everything watered sparingly...just enough to keep my rare plants alive. Praying constantly for rain and relief from the 100 yr. drought- record- breaker. Later gator....

Where has time gone....?

I can't believe how fast time is slipping away from me. It is so depressing to get on this computer with my slow modem. The internet is so far advancing and not considering the hell we folks on slow modems have to go through just to read our email, let alone try and surf anything on the web!

I live out in the country on a main Hwy. that is fast growing with homes for the rich. You would think that they would get DSL out here. The more the area grows, the harder it is to use the internet as the phone lines (old as it is) just get too much traffic on them. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Can't something be done about this? No, not interested in Satellite. Have heard nothing but complaints about it from folks around here.

Well, as far as the gardens go, the drought is bound to take it's toll eventually if we don't receive some blessed rain soon. The sport fishing pond is down by two feet and losing more water every day that passes with no rain or measurable rain. My water bill jumed twenty dollars last month from having to water despite using as much mulch as I can get my hands on. Guess I will have to go out into the woods with a tarp and start raking up leaves for more mulch. Unfortunately, I need to make more borders around the beds/trees in order to keep them contained or else the night wildlife just rakes it out everywhere by morning in their search for bugs.

Db has been working on the dock since the water is down. We bought a really attractive screen room at Lowes last month and had to enlarge the dock by about six inches all the way around for it to fit. We did that Sunday so now all we have to do is paint the new boards and then put the screen house up. That will be a wonderful place to get away from the nasty mosquitoes that drive us in every night.

I stopped selling plants and still have a goodly amount of Tapioca, Papaya, and some Tree Tomatoes left (Tamarillos) Guess I will pot them up to one gallons for next year and raise the price a few dollars then. Too hot to continue shipping, unfortunately. I could put up some more Yucca trunk cuttings. They would make it through the heat with no problems.

The area was cleared for the shop this morning. The gentleman was out there for about three hours bush hogging and grading. It will really be nice to have Db back here on the homestead, just like the good old days. He is really excited and has drawn more layouts for the shop building than I can count! My job will be to landscape it all, which I, too, am looking forward to.:-)

Enough for this go-round. I need to get out there and take photos of the progress from start to finish and now is as good a time as any. Later gator!