Time is a subjective thing.
Sometimes days are filled with drudgery of familiar tasks. They are not difficult or complicated, but there are many of them and all of them must be done, so we roll up our sleeves and get through them. And sometimes time just flies, and you turn around and realize the day is over.
Last week was both.
Gordon’s birthday went well. We went to BJ’s in a big loud group, ate all the things, and had tons of fun. I have discovered that my husband loves BJ’s monkey bread. It is truly decadent and pillow soft. So of course, I took it as a challenge and tried to replicate it. I am happy to report that this recipe from Pioneer Woman makes a ridiculously delicious monkey bread. She says to use non flaky canned biscuits. I used 2 cans of Pillsbury Grands Flaky biscuits and it turned out amazing. Easiest desert ever.
Kid 1’s bf, C., loves potatoes. Some of the potatoes in our pantry had sprouted, and he seemed to be troubled by this development, so Kid 1 suggested he plant them. He is not a gardening type, so at some point he asked me how to plant potatoes. I had pretty much given up on gardening in Texas. I told myself no more. No more planting, no more baskets, no more. But it was old potatoes, so what’s the harm, right?
I failed to take into account how industrious C is.
All my planters are full of potatoes. Even the abandoned planters. Potato city.
Kid 1 observed the potato farm and decided she would like to grow peppers. Peppers do grow semi-wild in our climate, so now there is a pepper farm. It’s blooming. I will probably end up separating some of this out down the road if it survives, although these are really big buckets.
All this planting broke my resolve.
I’ve repurposed the broken wheelbarrow Gordon was going to junk. So far the flowers are blooming up a storm. We will see what happens.
I know some of you are itching to give me gardening advice. Don’t do it. I’ve fought the Texas sun for 10 years now. I know what it can do. It will be 96 degrees today. 96. It’s April.
Now excuse me, I have to go online shopping and buy some rods for my hanging baskets.
Wonderful results. Quite the emerald thumb. Cheers to you!
allergies – argh but beautiful plants
I wish I could garden. Spring fever has hold of me.
Fellow Texan here — from the 19″ annual rainfall portion of the state — and boy does that heat kill ALL the things.
During a trip to England folks in the group kept marveling at the flowers, plants, etc. wondering how they got it to grow. I finally said, “PEOPLE! It rains here.”
I am mightily impressed with the potatoes and peppers. (Garlic does well in my part of the state.) Here’s hoping your flowers flourish.
Happy (belated) birthday to Gordon! Glad there was much food and fun.
It often does nothing *but* rain ????
Rainy habitant here too – nothing like the western PNW to make you an AMAZING gardener. I mean, its almost impossible to kill stuff once you get past the rain fungus season. Summers are glorious for plants.
And then it ends. And we’re back to cold, wet, musty, and lots and lots of tea.
Flip side to growing things are allergies. Just talking to a coworker who moved here from Texas and has been suffering migraines. I suggested she get some allergy tests to see if she’s allergic to things up here. Not sure if allergies would trigger migraines, but we’re starting to get the lovely carpet of green pollen coating the cars, so I could see that being an issue to new transplantees.
Allergies can definitely trigger migraines, speaking as an allergy and migraine sufferer.
I loathe the pine green pollen season. I spend the entire time stuffed up or medicated to the nth degree or both. My migraines are the worst in the spring.
Other thing is, if you get more changeable weather there than she saw in Texas, the migraines could be triggered by more frequent changes in barometric pressure. I get those as well. Joy.
Please wish her good luck getting this sorted!
Food allergies, fragrances, bright lights, and even Mineral deficiencies can contribute to Migraines. The world turned in my favor when I started taking Magnesium. I thought it was too simple to work, but desperation won over. I went from having crippling brain events 1-3 a week and now I only have migraines occasionally.
Yes, allergies can trigger migraines. I suffered migraines for years until i did food allergy testing and then stopped eating the foods the tests showed i was allergic to.
So i am lucky that i can take an allergy pill to head off a migraine if i accidently eat something I’m allergic to. Migraines suck and others are not so fortunate for an easy solution.
She did mention that chocolate gives her migraines, which I think is just the saddest thing ever.
My Mom‘s migraine triggers are any blue cheese, any red wine, or too much bittersweet chocolate. Mine are more pollen allergy based.
In case you come back and read this, a friend of mine recently told me that a good way to treat allergies that result from moving to a new locality is to eat locally-produced honey. Haven’t tried it myself (not having allergies thank God) but it’s an easy enough thing to try and if it doesn’t work you’re no worse off. Hope this tip helps someone.
I live in the same area and moss is covering everything this year. Parts of our driveway had a thick blanket of moss that required a shovel to clear it. I’m waiting a little bit longer before I drag out the pressure washer to de-green the house, sidewalks, fence, cars, kids play structure, etc.
I’m in pacnw as well. Lots of green and too much rain. But I love the climate and the myriad of parks, lakes, rivers, beaches and mountains here. I’ll deal with the rain. Smaller bugs.
And sometimes you get 20c one day and bloody snow the next. Which confuses the plants no end. Our tulips were open, shut, open, shut, open, shut and are now leaning precariously. And the greenfly didn’t even have the decency to freeze to death.
PS
Here being good old Blighty of the ever-changing weather
I understand about the 96 down there. Fort Worth, according to the Weather Channel, is suppose to hit 92. The local station I watch says DFW airport will hit in the upper 80s, near the record high of 89. This was after last night’s storms that brought tornado warnings to the north and south of Fort Worth. I thought March’s weather was weird. So far April is becoming the weird month. 🙂
No gardening advice from me. I tried container gardening down here. Everything burned up since my patio got too hot even though I watered the plants and containers. I gave up on gardening.
Have you tried shading your garden? https://www.plantedwell.com/shade-gardening-ideas/
There was shade from the trees near my patio, but the patio is made of concrete. Even with elevating the pots off the patio, they still burned. 🙁
Oh well.
I live in Wisconsin. We have 5 months of glorious gardening weather and then the rest of the year is cold, snow or pouring rain. We sometimes get days in the 90s but mostly 80s or 70s in the summer with the occasional rare over 100 day.
I lived in Texas for 2 years. . .my poor flowers baked in the sun. This makes me thankful for my snow.
Agree! As grumpy as I am that it was snowing in MI yesterday there is no way you would catch me in Texas. Xeriscaping just isn’t my thing.
I love the winter, but it is spring now which means digging and planting and dirt-covered children.
To be honest, there are quite a few flowering plants that are adapted to the heat in central TX. My esperanzas bloomed their hearts out the entire summer that we had something close to 90 days over a hundred and no rain at all (2011). Of course everything else hunkered down or died that summer. But if you want to grow the water loving flowers, you are pretty much out of luck unless willing to water daily (or maybe twice a day) and provide afternoon shade.
I have something in a native hibiscus that does the same and unlike the esperanza, it stays green all winter. It doesn’t have the huge hibiscus blooms that people love, but it blooms from May to Nov.
As far as my vegies go, it’s peppers, tomatoes and beans. I planted peas one Feb and couldn’t keep the fungus controlled enough to get any before the heat blighted them. But I have a lot of friends who grow their own veg and say it’s a matter of picking the ones adapted to heat and then watering the heck out of them.
I hope it brings you joy as long as it lasts, and you can put it aside when it doesn’t.
My college roommate used to say she had a green hangnail.
I can’t grow anything because if the deer don’t eat it, the groundhogs will. I have mini daffodils that survived the ravening hordes. I want to get some foxgloves. Eat that, stupid wildlife! Oy.
Enjoy. If you get something you can eat, bonus!
I’m in Southeast Asia. Yep. It’s April. It should be a blistering 38 degree Celsius even at night but no, it’s 22 and raining. It’s been a week and it’s still raining. Where’s the summer weather?
I think Texas is trying to hold on to it. 😀
It’s going to hit 90 in my part of NorCal. It’s April!!
To not give gardening advice is so, so hard. Gardeners love to give advise. Just you saying don’t is making me think of all the advise I want to give!! Lol. The potatoes and peppers both look great. I hope you get to enjoy hot sauce and roast potatoes in the future! Home grown potatoes taste miles better than store bought IMO. Happy spring!!
Lolololol!
I have “Thumbs of Death” but still can’t resist planting stuff. The less I touch it, the longer it lives ????
“Thumbs of Death”, huh? So challenging you to a thumb war would be a bad idea?
We had Hail and I think snow earlier today – so it is totally April in Denmark as well 🙂
Just love the potato invasion! My Russian banana seed potatoes haven’t arrived yet. Good thing because we still have a bit of snow in the garden. I’m about to transplant teeny basil seedlings into bigger cells to keep them growing under lights. They can’t go into the garden until the last day of May. Gardening keeps me humble. I always have at least one epic fail each year. I’ve been gardening for close to 50 years, so that’s a lot of fails for the compost pile.
Happy belated birthday! We love !onkey bread, to (but I’ve only served it as breakfast not dessert.)
We lived in Houston for 3 years and I totally understand. I could blame the climate for my tendency to kill plants but I think it’s my super power. Have fun !
Never heard of monkey bread. Had to Google it.
Was this BJ’s Brewhouse, Ilona? There are a couple near me but I’ve never been. I had delivery from one, so now I’m thinking of seeing if they have monkey bread so I can try it.
It was. It’s like a smaller version of Cheesecake Factory. Their seared tuna salad is delicious.
Ooh, I love Cheesecake Factory, even though they dropped my favorite dish (peanut sauce, chicken, noodle dish). Seriously, their menu has 20 pages and they just happened to drop my dish? It’s a conspiracy I tell ya.
BJ’s Seared Aji Tuna is my, go-to, if I’m not on a menu exploration. That’s one of the few menu items BJ’s has not changed since the Covid disaster began.
no advice but a wistful plea.
If you could spare some of that heat, please send it north. It’s only 51 (10C) in Ottawa right now. After the winter, it feels almost tropical. Sigh…
Enjoy the garden while it lasts.
Keep telling yourself that “ this too shall pass”. Later this year, we will all be looking back to this winter up here (I’m in Toronto) and wishing for some of the nice cold.
We’ve had our snowdrops out for a while and our spring stuff is sprouting too. Makes my heart glad to see them come back.
p.s. no gardening advice bc my sister is the gardener. I stick to being the admirer.
Colcannon for everybody!! The potato and pepper farms look amazing, and I love the pretty flowers in the wheelbarrow. I hope they make you smile when you see them!
I love monkey bread!! My recipe is similar but I include cook and serve butterscotch pudding to it which gives a deeper yummy kind of caramelly flavor.
Happy planting!
We did planting this past weekend, after planting our first Texas patch last year. Our pepper harvest was prolific, and our friends reaped what we sowed. And then they decided to gift us a pepper seed variety pack for Christmas. Part of my kitchen was turned into a a place to sprout these seeds, and now, three months later, I have gotten that counter back.
We planted three pepper plants, with the intent to gift the rest of the successful sprouts, and then planted tomatoes, zucchini, and various herbs. I’m a little concerned about the English Thyme, because Texas. We’ll see how it goes!
Texas gardening: Preach!
I gave up trying to plant in the beds on my mom’s AZ patio. Tomatoes bring white flies and flowers just die by June. I have had amazing luck with basil and oregano, big bushy plants that are very fragrant. Last year I planted salvia to attract hummingbirds and just before they were to bloom they shriveled up and died. Oy Vey……
::solidarity five::
Totally love it. It’s 90 something here this week too. Summer – not looking forward to it. At least you have rain. Now ya got me wanting to go out and plant. See what you did?
Sounds interesting. So far no planting bug this year, no point when I’m packing up to move. I did discuss plant containers with the manager where I’m moving. Sounded promising so fingers crossed. Job hunting again, bleh.
I am a survival gardener. If the plants survive my gardening ???????? I keep trying not to kill them.
I, too, make annual sacrifice to the Texas Sun God. I had decided that this year I would not risk the heart break ????, but just saw this smashing tik toc about how easy it is to grow ginger and turmeric, both of which are not only heat loving plants, but are perennials, in, now my resolve is wavering . Help me someone!! I have an optimism problem.
I totally get it; I grew up there. Gardening in Texas requires an alarming level of masochism.
That’s why so much of Texas industrial farming is cotton. It’s just too hot for most other crops.
I can’t say I’m a gardener, but your results are tempting. What I would really like is to have several herbs growing to have available when a recipe calls for such. Or, a madly prolific zucchini plant. But, we are defeated by the hideous squirrel population. We’ve tried various repellents. Nothing works. We’ve waved the white flag. ????
I grow herbs, and I’ve never had squirrels go for them. Nor deer, nor rabbits, nor groundhogs. In fact the herbs are just about the only thing nonhumans leave alone in my garden. The taste is too strong even for herbivores, apparently.
I had an identical wheelbarrow, used for planting flowers for years. It finally gave out, and I still miss it.
I am renting while building a new house so almost all my gardening this year is in pots. You are so right about the Texas heat. All those planting instructions that say, “full sun” were not intended for south Texas. We have two growing seasons: spring, when everything grows like crazy in a race with the heat, and fall/winter, when everything that doesn’t freeze grows some more. In between those two seasons are summer, when everything just hangs on and tries not to die.
Also true in NC. At least my front yard which is full sun all day. All. Day. The sun laughs at my plants that say full sun. Laughs mightily.
Bwhahahahahahahahah
this happens to me every spring….i swear i will not start a single thing – i will buy a few nice plants
yeah right .. so now i have 40 tomtao seeds started (10 different types)and 8 peppers so far in the east window with a tiny heater..we had snow the other day here in pa.
before i gardened an acre and a half with a 20X30 greenhouse and a spreadsheet as to who got what.. that was with a full time job… i swore when the greenhouse finally croaked that was it.. a break
i feel your pain …and hope you get something to eat out of it
I feel your pain. I cannot get cucumbers or zucchini to grow in northern Alabama, and it just irritates me when people try to tell me what I’m doing wrong. Coming from Montana to Alabama was a huge cultural and environmental shock, but like all the best plants, I’ve adapted and am thriving.
Wow! I thought zucchini grew everywhere! I wonder why not there?
So many potato plants!
I vicariously look forward to the day you get to harvest baby potatoes ????
I wonder what I could use in the UK to make that recipe. I don’t think we have the same kind of biscuits here…
Hey Margaret,
I’ve successfully used brioche dough or the frozen croissants as you can find in supermarkets here (my favourite are those from M&S), the ones you have to take home and bake for 18 minutes?
The monkey is part of the forgiving bread and butter pudding family, it will come out yummy anyway 😉
That being said, I do recommend trying the flaky American type biscuits, especially with butter and honey- they’re an *experience*. And whoever says they’re “just like scones” is a dangerous criminal who must not be trusted!
“Dangerous criminal!” ????????????
Scones and biscuits are definitely two different baked goods!! My mother made both. (My childhood was good!)
Biscuits with butter and honey is best when it’s homemade biscuits, but the refrigerated kind will do in a pinch.
Scones – in all their glorious variety! Still particular to the ones Mom made, triangle shaped with a light sugar glaze baked on top. My cousin makes really good ones with fruit – sometimes currants, sometimes cranberry.
(I worked at a well known bakery chain; people used to rave about the scones. Not bad for commercial, but not as good as homemade.)
“just like scones” WTF? Someone really said that? I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as dangerous criminal, but raving lunatic is a given.
I honestly feel gaslit whenever someone tells me that ????.
Are we not eating the same scones? They’re dry and crumbly instead of flaky and buttery!
There is a version of biscuit that is closer to scones in texture, although still lighter than an actual scone, but I’m not a fan. When someone shared a recipe with me that came out that way, I tinkered with it for a week until they were light enough to suit me. It was a completely different recipe by the end, including added and subtracted ingredients. I do enjoy scones in their proper place, but they’re not an acceptable or appropriate substitute for real biscuits.
Haha! I lived in Texas for 20 years. For flowers, plant wildflowers and you’ll have your fill–in the spring. Sometimes in the fall. My potato plants always gave me a few and were worth it, but if you want a huge crop, plant sweet potatoes. Gorgeous flowers and they do very well in Texas. Most flowers give you a few awesome weeks or maybe days in spring because…96. Yeah, I don’t miss that, not one bit even though I am over here planting cucumbers knowing it is not yet warm enough to thrive. So they are in pots. And I want watermelons. Cantaloupe do pretty well there in Texas too if you have the room to let them sprawl. Actually cantaloupe did very well. And those potatoes C planted are going to give you some potatoes! It’s awesome to see.
My herb garden is thriving–those also did well in Texas–sage, thyme, oregano…what else did I plant…oh basil. It needs some shade, more so than the others. The last ten years in Cedar Park, I moved my garden to mostly under the trees and much of it did well. Okra does extremely well in Texas. Don’t plant more than 8 plants. Six is probably enough. Once it gets going you will have enough okra for you and half the neighborhood!
My lettuce is also up (do not bother to grow in Texas except in the winter. Plant it in “hot” manure and it usually made it through the winter and produced fine). No sign of the cabbage yet. I think it may fail. But my snap peas look good (do not bother in Texas. Just not worth it and I did it anyway just for the two, maybe three meals we got out of it in early spring).
I haven’t seen any scorpions in months. Move to NM! I’ll show you around!
for wont says
companin planting.. get some caster bean seedsand plant your around the castor plant
.. if you get the bush variety of the squash and plant them around the castor been plant.. not bugs or squirrels will touch your squash and it will be prolific.. while the castor plant and the seeds are total poison they won’t cross pollinate.. and you will have a beautiful plot.. castor seeds get to be at least 5 /6 ft
good luck… i’m so sorry to give advice but it’s tough not to
Happy belated birthday Gordon
And fantastic plants all around to C, Kid 1 and Ilona… my plants don’t look as happy as those do.
+1 Happy Belated Gordon!
The Potato Farm! ????????????
I use the Grands biscuits for my monkey bread, too, and my favorite flavoring is a chai spice version. Coat the quartered biscuits with the spice mix and then pour over the butter and sugar syrup. Super easy and delicious.
Monkey! Sorry about the typo. Now if only I could bake money bread.
Fixed ????
But if you ever figure out that other recipe, please come back and share hehe!
The last time I lived where I could have a garden, I hadn’t left home yet.
I’d like to have a vegetable garden, but it’s not going to happen. Flowers are everywhere in my neighborhood, so that’s no problem – and I don’t have to tend them.
Sounds like things are thriving at the moment – at least in your planters. I hope everyone is well.
Happy birthday to Gordon! Monkey bread is delish! And I did notice that C left the potato farm at your house rather than taking them to his… ???? What’s up with that?
C and Kid 1 live with us while they are saving a deposit for their own place. If you are really lucky and a good kid, your parents might do that for you as well. 🙂
Yuuuuuup! And those are the best-est-est parents, too ????. (Like Mine!). You two are awesome! It can be really nice (because everyone gets along), to still be that close by and able to share cooking, cleaning, fun times. It’s worth it. We only live once. Families are important ????.
How is the Meyer Lemon tree doing
+1
Still alive and making more leaves. I just moved it outside a few days ago. Texas weather tends to be volatile, but I am pretty sure we are past freak frosts.
96F, you gotta hope so.
Oh NC likes to freak frost us too. It will be 80, and then *evil cackle* frost warning! Even as late as the last week in April. So no plants are out yet. Last year I put them out and then had to bring in about 10 pots and cover the others because the weather hates me. I do container gardening as my soil is mostly sand. Or clay. Or a weird mix of both. Gotta love NC.
I love the flowers in the wheelbarrow. So pretty. ????
No advice. Just have fun indulging your green thumb!
OMG – sounds like my gardening… I tried growing lettuce one year only to discover that bugs like to hide in the leaves and I felt like I could never clean it well enough… so I gave up and let the critters in the yard have at it.
Happy belated natal day to Gordon!
Re plants/gardening: I admire anyone who can make plants thrive. I have the onyx thumbs death; no plants are safe from me, not even the so-called “easiest plants to take care of” or the ones “impossible to kill.” Following instructions to the letter doesn’t save the poor flora.
Re cooking/baking: It will come as no surprise that I also have the onyx chefs hats of disaster. Example: Three ovens, three states, erupting over a period of 16 years.
Lol all it takes is one ???? to start the itch for a garden revolution ???? ???? ????
I had to give up gardening when my legs refused to support me. I tried gardening from a walker/chair combo but I just ended up on the ground anyway.
We live in zone 5, so I’ve opted for perennial everything. Plant it once, baby it a bit, and it stays forever.
Bliss. Well, bliss until Hubby forgets he’s not supposed to mow certain parts of the lawn. **Sigh**
It was pretty funny when he came in and asked me why the back yard smelled like a pizza. (He ran over all the thyme and oregano.) After we started to keep chickens I gave it all up.
Hang in there, and good luck with the spuds.
I’ve been in Texas for 18 years now. I tried gardening 1 year. It was awful. I grew up in the Midwest where anything stuck in the dirt will grow.
Now I have a few indoor plants and a couple on the patio in containers. That’s it. I figure that is what the farmer’s market is for. Let someone else with more patience and perseverance than I, and I will reward them with my hard earned money!
96???! Holy crap.
I woke up yesterday to steady drizzle followed by fat snowflakes & sleet. Still trying to feel warm in my house outside of a shower stall but 96* F in April??? I think I’ll throw on a blanket & endure for a few more weeks. I can always pull on another layer of clothing but when does hot become too hot? Kudos to you & all that you do!
???????????????? my brother grows peppers and all kind’s of things, in Dallas . I lives NW of FTW and I struggle to grow grass! But rosemary loves me!
Ours died. Last spring brought freakish amount of rain and all the extra water killed it.
I am in Texas too. A couple years ago I gave up and decided my garden pots are survival of the fittest. As I water them I tell them, “this is it. You are on your own after this” I tend to only have vinca left by mid-summer.
I’m in New Mexico where we have averaged 10 inches of rain a year for the last 5 years, and I’ve thrown in the towel on planting pretties. Cholla, and prickly pear cactus are gorwing wild in my yard along with desert bird of paradise, tree of heaven and some tree that has blooms that smell like death. As awful as it sounds I’ve accepted having spikey plants and actually encuraged prickly pears to grow at my windows as a additional theft deterrent.
Thank you, Ilona Andrews for the post.
I laughed about the potatoes. The deer ???? don’t eat them here as they are busy masticating on my corn, green beans and rest of garden etc.
I do have a question…. What kind of peppers? I prefer sweet mild ????bell peppers. For my BIL I grown a container of hot peppers every year. Last year was Serrano peppers. The year before was jalapeño…. No I don’t eat hot peppers ????. I forget the name of that other S pepper. Sigh
Shishito? Those are supposed to be mildly spicy.
Lol I have the opposite problem I have only garden in California… I tried in Denmark and Washington…. I can’t like I just don’t get it… I think timing is different due to rain and lack of sun.. but who knows… I understand your frustration as I have it as well just opposite lol
I can guarantee, if you could care less about the results, the plants will be amazing. I was just out doctoring my daylilies. I lost a bunch in our many ice storms this winter. The ice didn’t last long but mixed with warmer days when the plants started to try waking up, then heavy rain, with quick drop in temps to 20s really hit the stuff I got in the fall.
LOL, the deer pulled up a few of my recently planted daylilies last fall, literally out of the ground, and I didn’t have the energy to replant. Just threw them next to the compost pile without even covering them. We’ve had no sustained periods of real cold, but it’s been down in the teens for 2-3 nights at a time several times a month through the winter, including late March. Those bare-root daylilies, which are first-year, small-variety (Pardon Me or Ruby Throat, I forget which) ones, have been budding right on top of the dirt for a week. They’ve totally earned another spot in the garden.
FYI, I have had your pesto egg combo two lunches in a row. I had sundried tomato pesto on hand so that is what I used. Wowsa. I totally recommend it. Will try it when I can pick up some of the green basil pesto.
Living in Costa Rica we don’t get all the US convenient items so no Pillsbury rolls, flaky or not. But I don’t need the carbs anyway.
It’s not mine. That’s all Mod R. 🙂
Yeah we do a huge garden every year. So ambitious and gung hoe about how awesome we are going to be about faithfully watering and weeding. Have way through the garden explodes in huge amounts of growth and it is just overwhelming so we cut back on watering and tending it and then half of it dies and then it’s just sad!! So we shall see what we do this year!!
Happy belated bday, Gordon!! Glad y’all had such fun. And I will try the monkey bread recipe, but probably in a smaller form as I don’t wish to eat that whole thing myself.
Good luck with the potatoes. I tried sweet potatoes from a sprouter in my cupboard one year and got these finger sized things. I suppose just not enough water. Chile peppers are prolific in my yard, but bell peppers are a no go from now on. I do water the tomatoes tho and I had a cherry variety that was still producing when I pulled it out of the pot after Thanksgiving. Felt kinda guilty, but I was tired of the garden.
Congratulations.
For those of you who don’t have refrigerated biscuits, here is a recipe for monkey bread from scratch: https://www.crazyforcrust.com/homemade-monkey-bread/
My father lives near Ft. Worth and plants his tomatoes in February/March for harvest in June/July before they all die of heat. I can’t put anything into the ground until late May or it will die from the cold. Gardening is so difficult!
I got no gardening advice, but I commiserate. I didn’t get anything planted last fall, and hereabouts it was glorious gardening weather for months, if you could insulate your plants from the three or four 14 hour cold snaps the entire fall, winter and spring. I didn’t get anything planted yet for spring or summer, and just bleah.
Living in FL has taught me the joy of optimism and the reality of living in Hell. I plant every Spring thinking this will be my year.
Maybe I should try potatoes. Lol
When I lived in Dallas, TX. I planted old potatoes at the far end of the composting pile in our back yard. My roommates were were suspicious but my reasoning was the same as yours. Old potatoes – what did it matter.
The far end of the compost pile was pretty far into a decomposed stage and safe enough to plant in. We ended up with lovely fresh potatoes before the heat got so extreme that the plants died. The roommates were impressed at the reduction in food waste.
*hugs*
The love of life and of living things isn’t a bad thing! 🙂
Thank you! I take care of my mom so she is with me almost 100% of the time so is with me when I read your blog. Then she asks me what I am laughing about. I tell her I am reading my favorite authors blog and read it to her….and she laughs with me. Thank you for all the fun and funny.
Beautiful plants! hope they continue to do well! Thank you for sharing! and glad the birthday was a happy occasion!
We are elderly. This year we will stop planting impatients and replace with marigolds which are tolerant of droughts and bloom all over the place.
Just bought two copies of small magics. One copy for my granddaughter and one for me. Enjoyed origin story for Saiman and also of his cousin. And although it was a complete short story, would love a longer story of the girl who rescued a small piggy who was in a great deal of trouble.
Oh wow, it looks great!
My mom loved planting and growing things. We lived in the Caribbean so we had peas, corn, sorrel (hibiscus fruit), peppers, sugarcane and a bunch of other fruit trees in the yard, our neighbor had a grafted lemon lime tree, she helped care for and plants all over our house. Then she moved to New Jersey and had the opposite of your issue. Its too cold to grow anything at all. She’s given up and now has plastic plant everywhere.
When we move back this summer, I am going to talk her into helping me with a little herb garden. Fingers crossed I get her to reignite her green thumb again and see what else we can grow. I feel bad because my poor kids never had the experience of timing the full moon, watering and repotting plants and eating what you’ve grown and harvested. So Im going to try to help her and them lol. It may backfire, but it also might be fun.
That sounds like an awesome project, Keera, best of luck!
Hi Keera. Native NJ here. I’ve had many gardens over the years. The tricks are don’t plant outside before the end of May, don’t try to grow anything that is too temperamental weather-wise (Rutgers Cook College or any local nursery can help you choose if you’re not sure), use ground covers to keep soil warm early in the season, and cross your fingers! It’s worth the hassle and you’d be surprised just how much grows in NJ: our state ‘nickname’ is The Garden State. Good luck! ????
Sorry, one more suggestion: in addition to growing herbs, it might be fun to grow cherry tomatoes in a pot. If it’s too cold or too hot out, you can move the pot inside. I did that when my child was little, and those things grow like weeds, plus as you said, it’s awesome when kids can taste what they grew! ????
I love Pioneer Woman recipes. I started doing my own sauerkraut because hubby was eating it for his gut and it can be really expensive. It turned out really well.
That monkey bread looks outrageous. Putting it on my list for a special occasion.
I think I have the blackest thumb ever. I tried so many times to keep plants alive but they all died. Even cactuses. Well except mushrooms. They were fine. I must be going to hell and god is preparing me for darkness and humidity ????. I hope you have a wonderful week and less hot weather
I sympathise with your Texas heat problems.
Last year it was 48.9 degrees celcius in Sydney – that’s 120 degrees fahrenheit for Americans. It was so hot birds fell out of the sky from heat stroke and trees literally roasted to death.
Really hard to keep your garden alive in that.
Still try though. And given Sydney siders have a lovely temperate winter, we can grow year round.
Just finished planting sweet peas for the winter. They smell so pretty when the windows are open – and yes, some winter days we do get to have the windows open.
Good luck with the potatoes. I second the sweet potatoes. Those things grow anywhere – trifid like in fact.
After my last purchase of a truly awful grocery store tomato, fast forward to me deciding to try growing my own. I don’t do plants. I’ve don’t lots of research and fully expect complete and utter failure.
My Mexican petunias (lovely purple flowers) do fine in the full Florida sun of the Tampa Bay area. Confederate Jasmine and of course Hibiscus are the only other flowers that spring to mind that can take full Florida sun. Maybe they could survive Texas as well?
I forgot Indian Hawthorne, a lovely hardy bush with white or pale pink flowers. Full Florida sun is no problem for them.
You are splendid! The house full of you! Also, good luck. That kind of weather booted me out (voluntarily) from where I’d lived most of my life 9 years ago.
Home grown potatoes are fantastic, and fun to grow. I like growing the baby red, white and purple ones, and fingerlings. The flowers are pretty too! Can’t wait to see your harvest!
Zucchini…why not in Texas….the sun and humidity is a one-two punch of death. I grew up 1,000 miles north of Houston. Zucchini flourished…3 plants would produce so many zucchini, you had to beg people to take it off your hands. I’ve tried for 5 years to grow zucchini in Houston. Last year I planted 25 plants in the middle of March; hoping for a harvest before the relentless sauna kicked in…end result…first time I succeeded in growing zucchini…total harvest…one zucchini. This year my goal is double my harvest…two zucchini. Unlike where I grew up….Houston doesn’t cool off at night, nor does the humidity drop during the summer. Typical low temp in Houston summer…79 to 84 with 95% humidity. My peas were looking good until today…too hot….peas like cooler weather. You would think I would give up already….I remain determined.
Belated happy birthday wishes to Gordon!
After years of frustration, I finally have my own space, time, and funds to have a little fun gardening again. Droughts and water restrictions in NorCal mean that I need to curb my enthusiasm. I have most things in containers, so I can follow the sun and avoid the frost, depending on the time of year.
Looking forward to roses, lavenders, jasmine, sweet peas, holly hocks, sunflowers, and African daisies, with some pansies, carnations, herbs, and strawberries to liven things up. Every year I try a few more native/drought tolerant plants – some make it and others don’t.
This year’s projects are to install drip irrigation and a front fence.
Good luck with potatoes!
Sometimes you just need dirt therapy, even if it means disappointment and failure. I live in the desert; very little grows here that’s green. I still go to the nursery and pet the plants. Occasionally, one (or many more) follows me home. I over love it until it gives up.
Don’t give up if it makes you happy.
My coworkers (on the East Coast) were talking about planting tomatoes last month, and I got excited and bought two plants at HEB and put them into a really big pot. Will Austin heat up so fast that I never get any tomatoes? Who knows!
It’s been years since I tried growing tomatoes. The one year I was having great success with plants full of ripening tomatoes, it hailed and smashed them. Texas!! Gardening here is crazy.
Nothing like spring flowers to drive the “drabs” away! Enjoy!!
Those of us in Florida extend you congratulations, sympathies, and empathy. We started out yesterday with the heater and ended it with the a/c.
I have the opposite problem of your Texas heat. I live in Norway. Last weekend, I enthusiastically planted all my balcony boxes full of spring flowers, and this week it dropped below freezing every night. I guess we’ll see if any of them survive ????
No frosts or heatwaves here on my north east facing hillside in Wellington NZ. Garden is lush and delicious.I even have 20 or so apples waiting to be picked. Potato’s in time for Xmas , beans, silver beet, herbs, feijoas, peas, lettuce, pears, strawberries, blueberries, lemons, limes…..And a tiny peep of the sea from my reading bench.
Оооо, картошечка! Какая прелесть. Мы даже как комнатное растение выращивали – кидаешь в землю очисток с ростком и вот тебе лиана с экзотическим цветком.
Никаких советов, просто делюсь 🙂
С днём рождения Гордона 🙂
I’ve seen some automated shade awnings that help keep the plants out of direct sunlight for a variable amount of hours per day. Now this garden “accessory” is both overkill and will never ever pay for itself. Good luck with the garden.
I’m sad. We had to move into an apartment while our new house is being built. I see all the plants at the home stores and I want to play in the dirt. Ilona, grow something for me please. 😀
I finally bought a house in the Central Texas heat and am will to take any and all gardening advice!
Your blog is the only one I read. I think because your writing sounds like Kate’s voice to me sometimes. That sounds silly, I know. Okla is like Texas periodically, but has been fairly mild the last couple of summers. I hate the heat.
Does anyone know what would substitute for canned flaky biscuits in Australia? The recipe looks yum!
Re: gardens… after 3 months of heatwaves our entire quarter acre block is dry and brittle. We’re planning on digging it all up and installing gravel art, a water feature, a limestone fire pit circle and raised vegetable garden beds. Wish us luck! ????
Any buttery dough that puffs up- I’ve had success with croissant dough or even brioche in the U.K. ????
As a fellow gardener in ridiculously hot climate- it was 35 celcius here today and will top 40 this week- don’t give up just because it’s hot. Embrace the tropical, weird and wonderful. Have a look at desert roses if flowers make you happy. They come in amazing colours.
Wow. Makes Maryland’s 62 and rainy look pretty darned good.
I so get the gardening advice note. I live in Southern cal big desert and if it isn’t the summer 99+, it is the hot winds for 9+ months. Anything that survives is just luck.
Off topic, I am sorry. But The Planet Crafter came out on steam. It is kind of survival Satisfactory. Still early access. I remember a while ago you were looking for new computer games.
I bought it! Thank you for the heads up. 😀
I have a spotty record of keeping living things. Cats, yes. Plants, not so much.
After killing (7) philodendrons I had my pots taken away and was told not to walk on the grass…
Sigh….our last frost date is the beginning of May (Niagara Falls NY). I desperately want to get seeds in the ground, but I will have to live vicariously through you guys for a while. Grow little ‘taties, Grow!!!
The potato plants are beautiful. C does know that potatoes need mounding, yes? A couple of those pots don’t look too moundable, but I have confidence that industrious gardeners will figure it out! Good luck.
Please let us know how the potatoes turn out. I have planted sprouted potatoes before and it didn’t turn out so well. My dad plants seed potatoes and proceeds to give us all bags of potatoes while the rest of us can never get them to grow. I blame the Texas heat. Even though we all live in Texas…..
Jalapenos are on my list from the garden section of Home Depot, as is basil, thyme, sage, and something else that I can never seem to remember….might be cilantro…tomatoes….I can’t remember right now.
Oh well back to work. Articles do not write themselves.
No advice here! I can manage a few houseplants but gardening outside defeats me.
But I’m happy to see you have flowers to enjoy, for however long they last.
Smiles, spring is all about hope and new beginnings … go for it! Meanwhile, are those Alesandro Sagredo peppers? (habaneros, smiles) … and do we get Catalina’s Mango Salsa recipe somewhere along the line? Meanwhile, changing series, I looked up “Takara Houston” on the internet, and discovered it exists …. Now when I imagine Penelope in the parking lot, I’ll have a clearer image … grins. Thank you for all the fun.
You can find the recipe here ????- well, for the House Andrews version, but I have a feeling that Catalina’s is fairly similar ???? https://ilona-andrews.com/2021/its-thursday-yay/
Yes!!! We live 45-ish minutes northeast of you (I think), and my green-thumb/son-of-a-Master-Gardener husband has tried and given up repeatedly over the 17 years we have been here. During that time there has been one amazing growing season (winter!) and lots of frustration and wasted seed. But every time he gives up, there’s some sort of crisis (drought in CA! Pandemic! War in Ukraine!) that threatens to disrupt access to affordable fresh foods, so he tries again despite late frost, early heat, drought, an ARMY of voracious pillbugs, soil that stubbornly resists amending, and over-chlorinated water that even a filtration system can’t help much. Yesterday there was a modest double handful of unpleasant-looking but tasty sugar snap peas on our supper table, so I guess that counts as a win?
I love gardening but it’s often a challenge. And the weather here in So. Calif. has been so …… weird, unpredictable, and unfortunately so very dry. Temps in the 90s for the next 3 days, then mid 70s then in the 60s. ????????♀️
Happy planting and gardening!!! I don’t know how you do it in the Texas heat! I love the results, but hate all the sweaty, dirty work that goes into getting, and maintaining, those beautiful plant and flowers. For the first ten years or so of owning a home, I took great satisfaction in planting, pruning, and maintaining a beautiful lawn and garden. Now all I can think about is how much work it is!
Good luck with your flowers, and any other plants you decide to include in your gardening!! I hope they all thrive and bring you much enjoyment.
I meant to add a happy birthday wish to Gordon, but posted too soon. Apologies!!
Happy, happy birthday Gordon!! I hope you had a wonderful day, filled with laughter and love, shared with family and friends!
All of this gardening-talk has reminded me that I only have one month to wait for my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares to start arriving every week! CSA’s are great: they all work differently, but in the one I belong to, members pay a fee up front and then receive fresh (as in picked the day before!) produce in season. My CSA allows us to pick whatever items we like and not take those we won’t use. Last year was the first time I tried it: best tasting veggies ever! I will probably plant some things, but there is no way I could grow the variety of veggies that I can get thru the CSA….can’t wait! ????
Last few years I haven’t done much planting because I was a full time caregiver and my aunt couldn’t be left alone (some porch boxes that she could sit and help me with). I resorted to good quality fake flowers and hardy perennials. She passed in February. I am hoping to dig in the dirt this spring. It is very “grounding” ????. Today it is only in the 40s so I will have to wait until it is warmer. Wishing you joy and peace with your efforts and a very happy belated birthday to Gordon.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Sorry for your loss.
I’ve tried every year for the 7 years I’ve lived in this house to grow things. But I had full shade due to many pine trees, which also jacked up the soil. And squirrels. So. Many. Squirrels. The $%#*&$ tree rats devoured EVERYTHING including the supposedly toxic-to-them bulbs.
Last year, a tornado ate ALL of my trees, so now I’m in full sun. Still have the awful soil. BUT many fewer tree rats. So i’m gonna try again. I never learn.
Happy belated birthday, Gordon.
The garden looks great for now – good luck with it.
Last year was horrible for gardening in Ohio, way too much rain. But I’ll probably put out some tomatoes plants for fried green tomatoes and BLT’s. With Texas temperatures you could cook outside using the sun.
I too live under the Texas sun(Fort Worth)so I commiserate with the flower issue. Those look like lovely New Guinea Patients and some Coleus. The Coleus does well but the patients will probably die off in the hottest months. At least mine seem to do so. The only reliable bloomer flower with zero maintenance (I don’t deadhead ever) that has ever worked for me in Texas was Vinca. The Coleus (some varieties at least) do very well. Good luck! I love the wheelbarrow repurposing.
46 degrees in southern new hampshire today. I am waiting for “spring” shipping rates for more violet. Thinking minis this time so I have room for more. Hope your flower survive.
What happy gardening inspirations! I’m glad its a lot of fun right now! May the things that are hard and stressful go as kindly and smoothly as they can.
Pretty flowers in your wheel barrow. Most of those plants require partial shade to thrive, especially when growing under the direct Texas sun. Perhaps you could move the wheel barrow, or put an umbrella near it, or construct some type of shading trellis over it? Good luck with the potatoes and peppers. I’ve never grown potatoes anywhere, except by forgetting about them in the kitchen pantry. How do you even know when it is time to harvest an underground vegetable? Very mysterious to me.
I think the leaves have to turn completely yellow/ die
It is still cold here. My sister’s neighbour has a back yard full of snow drops. I was stunned! It is too early! Too early to take the dead leaves off the flower beds! My tulips are 3 inches above the ground and so is my rhubarb. But they are on the south side of a rock wall… end of April is when I expect spring flowers
Arlington, Texas here … April 6th and it is a lovely 72 here —after upper 80s and lower 90s last week and tornados two nights ago.
Been trying to garden in Texas for over 30 years and I only have one piece of advice. If you plant something somewhere and it grows, keep planning it there — year after year after year. If you wanna take a chance on something dying, planned something new. But if it grows….(I use a lot of containers, too.)
I love gardening, even if it only lives a little while, still fun. Good luck. I was able to grow dahlias for the first time.
A potato garden is pretty funny.
I live on the Eastern Slope of the Rockies outside Denver, and my plants attract bunnies which in turn entertain our cats who watch them through the sliding glass doors. Potted plants do ok, but the sun is a killer.
Late Happy Birthday greetings for Gordon.
Added to that I once grew funny looking yams in a pot that I’d planted sweet potatoe vies for their cascading looks. Weird yams. Weird shapes. Looked like a brain.
You’ve given me quite the ???? chuckle. I have two black thumbs, I don’t think it would matter where I lived. Good Luck!
Hee hee hee! Sounds awesome! Go potatoes and peppers and flowers! We are in your favorite area, Portland Oregon (well, Gresham, but most people have never heard of it). It was below 36F this morning here. Tomorrow we are expected to be up to 76! Then snow. We are going through typical PNW Spring. My mason bees don’t know what to do. But our native plants are blooming like crazy and it is green and beautiful. I love it here so much. Best wishes to you with your baskets!
Good luck with your plants! I’m sure you’re going to be successful.
I feel your pain in the garden. South Florida is really hot too and I’m limited to containers. Everything I planted last year was eaten up by pests or just wilted. Trying again this year after watching tons of YouTube videos on pest control.
Good luck with your “ not garden” ????
Congratulations – it’s so cheerful to see plants sprouting in the spring and when other things going on in the world are not so happy. Best of luck in your showdown with Texas weather – sending lots of moral support to HA.
I grew wonderful tomatoes last year and they were invaded by some creepy alien looking horned caterpillar things… eek !
Good luck!
Potatoes: until the flea or cucumber beetles get them. Good luck !
Fellow Texan.
Born and raised in Texas, transplanted to Oklahoma where the weather is not much different – rollercoaster temps. Just saying, drip irrigation. Put it in and leave it alone – except for the weeding. Why can’t weeds be flowers?
LoL I lived in Fort Worth for over 20 years. I feel your garden pain. I still have my well used Neil Sperry book. Fort Worth is built on limestone. A friend used a gas powered post hole digger to make holes to plant shrubbery. Basically a jackhammer
Totally not gardening:
Squishmallow Alert!!
My local Hallmark has the new “Stackables Squishmallows”!! If Kid#2 is still looking for new characters, try your area stores!!
I accidentally went nuts watching the garden show on my favorite downfall shopping channel, QVC. Since I am the age where I sometimes forget my previous actions, I did not realize until I started receiving the plants that I had duplicated some plant orders. I did not really worry-I just figured I would share the bounty with my daughter and she could have a lovely yard also! Imagine my surprise when she adamantly refused to share in my bounty! I now have a plethora of bulbs, seeds and small plants and my hubby (who actually ends up planting all this stuff) is beginning to look rather huffy!
Anyway, in desperation he took a bunch of plastic barrels he had collected for some obscure reason and cut them in half and created some rather clever planters and proceeded to plant all my plants rather higgly piggly in them. Imagine our surprise when the durn things began to flourish. I had even started some of the seeds in my kitchen windowsill and these began to take over that area so he also planted them outside in the clever planters, where they now flourish! I must explain, we have never been fruitful gardners. For the first time in years, the tomato plants we planted last year actually produced a beautiful small tomato. Unfortunately, we were called away to a family gathering and by the time we returned it had fallen off the vine and began to rot. SIGH!
But this year we shall prevail-if for no other reason than we have had to plant so much durn stuff some of it HAS to do well! We live in Florida, so I must report that some of the bulbs we planted early are already popping up and look quite promising. We shall see! I was told one should NEVER plant outside until after Easter because we ALWAYS get a surprise freeze before then. I am standing by with a trusty tarp to cover them in case of weather hazards. I hope to soon be literally covered in lovely veggies and flowers of all varieties. Hope remains true!
Footnote: My loving hubby warns that the plastic barrels you make your planters from should not have previously contained commercial herbicides! He has just revealed this as he read over my shoulder! EEK! I shall still remain hopeful.
Ooh monkey bread looks yummy, would love to try and make it but we don’t have the same kind of biscuits in Australia, they kinda look like our scones though ????♀️ ???
Happy Birthday Mr Andrews
*waves at Carey from Perth*
I want to make it but I also not sure what buttermilk biscuits are!
Here’s a sample recipe for buttermilk biscuits, scones seem very dry and dense to me; our (US) biscuits are light and fluffy when properly made
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220943/chef-johns-buttermilk-biscuits
If you don’t have buttermilk on hand you can add lemon juice or vinegar to sour regular milk
Thank you for this everyday snippet.
We had rain this morning. The snowbanks shrank about a foot. We’re getting 12-15 inches of snow between tonight and Saturday. One step forward, two steps back.
I live on an island in Lake Superior. More than 300 inches of snow this year. I don’t know how much more because I quit counting at 300.
Our last frost day is in June. I planted peppers last year and brought them in in September. They still haven’t flowered.
On the other hand we don’t get days that hit much over 85. Ever. Great for heat-phobic people like me, very bad for tomatoes and peppers.
Nope, nope, no advice. I’ve never gardened in Texas, have no idea. I’m busy learning about it here in Tucson! Have fun, keep the pictures coming!
I totally understand the woes of gardening in semi desert areas. I live in Kansas and battle the urge to grow things. My week spot is tomatoes. I’m all in until the 90 degree rainless days and high water bills makes the farmer’s market such a wonderful invention. However fresh cherry tomatoes still warm from the summer sun are a wonder of nature.
April
Spring
Hope springs eternal
and then there’s Texas ????
I am in Wisconsin. It snowed last weekend. I would give my eye teeth for some of that sunshine. ????????????
Wonèt post advice but I underrstand. I used to live in an area of Semi desert, Sagebush, sand, Pine trees and rattle snakes. In the summer you always had to check your lawn for rattlers after you watered it because they’d come in the mornings for the moisture. Potatoes were pretty easy, Strawberries took the right type of shade and the other things you could grow were Rhubarb and mint. My next door neighbour used to just hop the fence and we let them cut as much rhubarb as she wanted
oh my! Monkey Bread looks amazing. I need ot work out what buttermilk biscuits in a can is though 😛 we don’t have that in Australia… off to do some googling! Unless some wonderful member of the BDH has a suggestion?
A feasible replacement would be croissant dough or you can make it it all from scratch, there is a recipe shared above in the comments https://www.crazyforcrust.com/homemade-monkey-bread/
96 degrees in Texas… welcome to Minnesota. It’s 36 degrees here, lol
It’s autumn here so I picked all the tomatoes and the green ones. Now it’s tidy up time. And bury my tulips
Ahh yes. As someone from the north of Australia where the grass is brown most of the year I can feel your gardening pain. You learn quick to plant local things or be prepared to fertilize and water your life away to keep them going.
Snowed here in South Dakota yesterday. What is this 96 of which you speak? Seriously, we get 96 in July and August, with a dry heat or hail storms, whatever.
Love it. I can totally relate as I live in SW Florida. Gardening here is a winter sport. Good luck with the potatoes. Perhaps C will open a farm stand, yikes!!!
My parents loved peppers. They would plant them in medium-sized trash cans, and bring them inside come fall. (Because, Maine.) The peppers would cheerfully continue to bloom. Mom would the pollinate them with a tiny, little paintbrush from an old water-color set, accompanied by buzzing sound effects.
Peppers in January.
I miss them.
(Parents, not peppers)
I’ve been wanting to try a decent monkey bread recipe.
Thank you for sharing the link!
I had the same gardening issues when I lived in FL. Horrible time finding plants that could handle the heat, even when they said they could. I did have a lot of success with peppers, but in FL peppers end up extremely mild because of how much you have to water them to keep the heat from killing them (especially Jalapenos). this is going to be our first year full year in CO, which means we have to watch for the opposite problem, when you think the weather is going to be nice and then it snows in late May and your non-frost resistant plants are now dead. We moved to late to plant anything last year, but early enough to know that it might still freeze at night in June.
Huh. Biscuits in a can. Will have to see if those are available downunder (for science).
House Andrews: We’re not going to be posting as much.
Also House Andrews: *keeps us fed*
This is not a complaint, by the way 🙂
I truly feel your pain, I live in Phoenix and even the winters are a challenge. That is why I made the better half build raised boxes, install a drip system and plant shade trees years ago.
I’m on the opposite side. We’re just had this rain/snow combo this morning and now it’s still pretty brisk in the afternoon (I’m still wearing my winter coat outside), so I try to grow everything inside a spare room.
I’ve been putting green onion scraps in water and the way they grew gave me big dreams about growing other scraps. Sadly, they seemed to have stopped growing? I thought green onions were so easy but I guess I’m worse at gardening than I thought ????
A bit late but Happy Happy Birthday Gordon!
Those new garden ideas your family did look fun. Industrious indeed. 🙂
Greetings from Southern Finland. Huge snow fall still in APRIL. 2 blizzards last week. Only this week it has really started to melt down. Still long way to melt before I can hope to see some tulips. This has been a bloody long winter. I like this amount of snow in Dec-Jan. In April: come on…..