Posted on 02/14/2008 7:07:09 AM PST by Gabz
February used to be close to the tail end of our cold weather, any more it seems to be the beginning, with the cold often lasting into May. Enjoying our mild January brings to mind first—thankfulness—and then—memories and tales of past years when the weather was not so nice, and how very fast it can change. Christmas of 1989 comes to mind—shirtsleeves and bare feet in the morning and snow by nightfall, with temperatures staying well below freezing for a good many days.
Tales of even colder times, and people’s helplessness against it. January brings memories of the Chrissie Wright going down off our coast in January of 1886. The three-masted schooner ran aground— broadside—off Shackleford Banks, three miles east of Beaufort. Eyewitness reports state that the weather was balmy, around seventy. The tide was low and there seemed no urgency to get to the ship or crew who showed no signs of distress. The high tide would lift her off the shoal and she could limp into port. The weather changed in a blink along with the tide, the wind coming around and the temperature dropping below freezing in about an hour.
The schooner was pounded mercilessly by high waves, which picked her up and slammed her back down on the sand, forcing the crew to climb the rigging to keep from being washed overboard. Unable to launch the rescue boats to get to the stranded ship because of the suddenly freezing temps and the howling gale that whipped the ocean waves into a towering frenzy, the men prepared to help could only stand on the beach and watch in horror. They lit a huge bonfire and kept vigil. The crew of the Chrissie Wright survived the first night. Daylight showed ice along the edge of the ocean and the sounds were frozen solid. By the time a local fishing boat was able to reach the Chrissie Wright late in the afternoon of the next day, all but one of the six crew members had perished—either washed overboard or frozen to death.
What do snowstorms and shipwrecks have to do with gardening, you ask? The one thing everything on this planet has in common with every other thing is our dependence on weather and our inability to control it. Probably a good thing we can’t control it! Can’t you just see people fighting over the temperature control like a couple of toddlers fighting over a toy? Mine, mine, mine! Hotter! Colder! Wetter! Drier! No, we’re definitely better off taking it as it comes. Besides, what else would we have to talk about?
Ancient civilizations, long gone and buried in sand dunes attest to the fact that once there was abundant water here. Underwater caves in Florida and south America hold relics and evidence of human habitation. Since people don’t have gills, it’s a reasonable assumption that at one time these lands were well above sea level. Our own West shows signs of habitation and agriculture in currently inhospitable areas. Scientist theorize that a seven hundred year drought—!—caused the collapse of this particular civilization.
Farmers and fishermen and gardeners have a healthy respect for the weather. They have to. For all our modern equipment and weather predicting radars and such, we are every bit as dependent on the weather as our forebears. We like to think we can outfox the weather, but we are at it’s mercy. Sure, we can drag a hose out and water if it doesn’t rain—but there’s nothing we can do if it rains a flood and then rains some more. We can cover plants up if there’s an unexpected late cold snap but we’re helpless against weeks of hundred degree temps baking everything to a crisp.
Reminders for February:
February is time to spray dormant oil on your fruit trees and shrubs to kill any bugs that have over wintered. This is the most important spray for the fruit trees, and remember to keep spraying them on a regular basis starting once the buds swell. Use a fruit tree spray with an insecticide and a fungicide and use it according to the proper schedule for your type of fruit tree.
End of February is time to fertilize your pecan trees. Remember to use a fertilizer with added zinc.
This is a good time to spray winter weeds, such as Florida Betony. Mostly dormant in the summer, winter weeds are actively growing right now. Florida Betony is one of the worst. It’s extremely invasive and loves to take over flower beds. A member of the mint family, it has square stems, oval to heart shaped leaves with scalloped edges, lavender blooms, and a very distinct smell. Florida Betony can grow to two feet in height but usually stays around eight inches to a foot tall. It spreads by seeds, rhizomes and tubers. If you try to pull it up, you’ll notice the distinct white tubers, shaped like a rattlesnake’s rattle, giving rise to another name for this obnoxious plant—Rattlesnake weed. Florida Betony is very hard to kill, especially since most of the sprays that will work on it are not safe to use in the root zone of ornamentals. The only other alternative is to chop and hoe and pull. If you leave even one miniscule little piece, it will come back to haunt you like a bad dream. Florida Betony seems to enjoy the challenge of outwitting mulch and landscape fabric. Just when you think you’ve gotten it all, it sends up shoots somewhere else.
On a side note, the tubers are edible, or so the literature says! Maybe that’s the way to get rid of it! Tout it as a great delicacy, put it on the endangered species list, and it should disappear in no time!
Depending on the weather, it’s time once again to start planting cole crops—onions, potatoes, beets, peas, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Vidalia-like onion sets—if you can find them. If you’ve been thinking about starting an asparagus bed, now is the time.
Garden Girl’s comment above about crazy weather is very apt!
Last week we had springlike temperatures into the 70s. Yesterday it was in the mid 50s and we got over 1.5 inches of rain, which turned to snow sometime overnight and although there was little or no accumulation school was cancelled anyway because of fear of icing on the roadways.
come on SPRING!!!!!!!
For the last few years I’ve been keeping a pictorial record of the weather here. It’s not terribly accurate but I do date most of the photos and its kind of interesting to see the differences from year to year. (Lots of pictures)
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/111054/ 06
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/54892/ 07
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/340854/ 08
Mornin’ everybody! Windy and rainy here yest. Cloudy and cool this am. Sun’s supposed to come out and be nice this aft. Winds nw, 10-15.
Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, even without the heat being on, it’s nice and everything is growing beautifully. Had yest off and it is just amamzing how much stuff grows, even in a day’s time. Cold crops are gorgeous and ready to go, and recently transplanted tomatoes are standing up and waiting for their turn.
I was going to spray my shrubs yest with dormant oil—have some cottony cushion scale I can’t sem to get rid of—but the weather and the gbaby put a halt to that! Can’t complain too much about the rain—Lord knows we still need it.
Have a sister who works at Plant Delights in Raleigh. City just passed a moratorium on hand watering. PD is outside city limits, so they’re ok, but no one is going to buy plants they can’t water! At the same time, Pepsi’s Aguafina water is bottled out of Falls Lake, a main water source for Raleigh. no mention of making them stop. Go figure.
What AWESOME pictures, and I’m only halfway through looking at 2006!!!! (slow on dialup)
Believe me, I’m not complaining about the rain, I know how much we need it. I do feel for the official who made the call for cancelling school, though. I imagine there are a lot of very unhappy parents around this county today. Although with the wind and the overnight high tide on the Chesapeake, I imagine there was a lot of coastal flooding, and that is a legit reason for calling it.
All the schools from me north up into southern Delaware were closed today.
I can see the th issue about not buying plants that need to be watered.............and of course there will be no talk about closig down the bottler.......$$$$$
The heck with the little guys, big boys have to be coddled.......
We have a lot of school cancellations around here if the tide gets high. Most of the roads are old and just above water level. One snow flake, and you can guarantee no school!
Money talks. :( Plant Delights has some really cool stuff.
It’s 30 degrees here. We have snow covered with ice, on which my husband slipped and sprained his ankle this morning. We’re a long way from Spring here in Massachusetts!
Beautiful!
The plants are a half-inch tall now. I am considering thinning the cabbages to one plant every six inches or so while the plants are still under an inch in height. When they get to three or four inches, I may thin the remainder by transplanting. I have the space, and I hate to waste good plants.
Germination of the lettuce has also been good, though a tad spottier than my sturdy brassicas. These I will likely thin out to one plant every six inches or so, and just let them fight it out. We will be picking leaves off these as soon as they are strong enough to sustain a harvest, so I'm less concerned about their space requirements. The plants may get tallish, but they will stay pretty narrow. =]
Nothing to report yet on my 2003 seed packet germination (I tried the radishes and the peas). It's too soon to tell.
Well, there's the solution right there. Plant Delights needs to stock up on "watering kits" (i.e. cases of Aquafina)!
That’s why I live here, and not there! :) It was 38 when I got up, 43 now, sun’s trying to come out—s’posed to get up to 57. Course, we all know the weatherman lies! The older fishermen have a saying here—If you listen to the weatherman, you’ll starve. If you don’t, you’ll drown. LOL
Hope your hubby is ok.
Ouch, your poor husband. A friend of ours slipped on the ice in Northern Virginia, Tuesday night. he was not as lucky as your husband, his is fractured.
I WANT SPRING!!!!!!
We had overnight temps in the low 20s and it is going to 58 today. Go figure.
Yay! It’s so much fun to watch stuff grow! With those little seeds, it is so easy to crowd them. We direct sow ours in 4 packs, 48 plants to a flat. Usually double sow one row of 12, and then use those extras to fill in any missing ones.
Lettuce we sow heavy and then thin and transplant the extras. What kind of cabbage do you plant? Most people here like the Early Jersey Wakefield—it’s sweeter and gets ready faster—less time for the cabbage loopers to munch!
I’ll have to tell my sister about your idea! It could work—buy a plant, get x many bottles of water free! Most of the stuff at PDs is in quart containers because they do alot of mail order. Anything bigger and it’s cost prohibitive to ship.
I learned about school closing because of coastal flooding, very early on. It was early September ‘03, only the 3rd day of school. It had rained the night before but Thursday morning the sun was shining and it was beautiful. My husband was waiting outside with our daughter, then in kindergarten, for the school bus and it was more than 20 minutes late. Just as he was about to give up and just drive her to school someone driving by stopped and told him that school had been closed.
The weather was beautiful, so neither of us even thought to check the TV or online for school closing. They now have a system that if you signed up for it at the beginning of school, an automated phone system calls (at 6am) with any delays or cancellations.
Thanks! You can find my stuff monthly in the Newport Voice. I told Gabz when we started this that my articles were very area specific! Hope you get your tiller fixed, and we have plenty of beautiful, locally grown plants when you need them!
You’re moving right along there. Good for you!!!!! I need to wait another week or so before I can start.
We get those kind of wild fluctuations as well.
Bring on Global Warming!!!!!!
Too funny! We grew up with it, so we just know. Besides, the kids—adults, too—know where to check. If the water is over the road in certain spots, then it’s a pretty safe bet no school/delay. The water doesn’t usually get all that deep, but you can never be sure the road beneath hasn’t washed out. Not that it has in living memory, but it sounds good!
Does PD have a website? I meant to ask you that upthread :)
| Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday |
 60° F | 36° F
16° C | 2° C |
 63° F | 45° F
17° C | 7° C |
60° F | 50° F
16° C | 10° C |
 68° F | 34° F
20° C | 1° C |
 50° F | 22° F
10° C | -6° C |
| Clear | Chance of Rain 30% chance of precipitation
|
Chance of Rain 30% chance of precipitation
|
T-storms 80% chance of precipitation
|
Partly Cloudy |
I was thinking along the same lines, but not knowing what folks around here generally plant, I tried Early Round Dutch. The web told me 75 days to harvest, and I figured that that would allow me to get my cabbages cut just in time to transplant hot peppers to where the cabbages had been.
Transplant peppers too early, and they just do nuthin' until the ground warms up.
Meant to post it! plantdelights.com
ERD does well, it just warms up fast here on the coast and cabbage loopers and aphids come out in droves! We also plant Savoy, Chinese cabbage, and red, tho not nearly as much. People are funny about what they plant. :)
You’re absolutely right about peppers, and you can’t make most people understand that. Peppers are definitely a warm season plant. Something else I’ve noticed—the hotter the pepper, the hotter the temp has to be before it will germinate.
Mine's going to be pretty close to that size as well. I have to wait a few more weeks before I start any serious work outside.......but I'm already plotting and planning!
Not only did I not grow up with it, because we are located practically at the east/west center point of the county, and on a bit of a rise, we have no way of knowing what the (more) coastal sides are experiencing without gettign phone calls because local news around here is between zero and none!!!!
Thank you! I’ve now added it to my gardening collection of sites!
We planted anchos, good old-fashioned cayennes, datils, chocolate habaneros, chiltepins, and serranos. I was unhappy with the anchos; they only made little peppers, I don't think I got good seed. All the plants came up thick and strong and jungly; no weed had a chance that year. My son (then age 10) sold hot peppers at the farmer's market every Saturday for three months, and made enough money to buy himself a Sony camcorder.
Awesome!!!! If you don't mind my asking, how did he price his peppers? I'm planning on selling some of mine this year as well. Last year I only planted for personal use and for the jelly I make from them that I sold at the stand my husband built for me.
same here I plot the whole thing out on paper including how I will irrigate...
I start a lot of seeds inside... and this year I have plans for a greenhouse so I can keep going year round...cause right now it’s only plans but we’ll see
A greenhouse has to be put off for another year for me. So I’m still stuck with shelves around my front room windows. They’re L shaped covering 4 windows with east and south exposure.
could you give me a link I would like to read so more thanks....BTW you say Newport is that NC, (cause if it is I'm right around the corner...) Va, or were eles
Today’s projected high 55.
Tomorrows projected low 18.
Not wacky, typical NM.
I think I remember that he asked a quarter each or five for a dollar for the bigger ones, and a dime each or twelve for a dollar for the itty bitty (delicious) chiltepins.
He sold them out of a great big wide basket, all mixed together. It made a nice display, and didn't require that we keep them seperate. At the end of the day, we would make deals with other vendors for the remaining peppers, or once I drove my son down to the local taqueria, where we sold a plastic Wal-Mart grocery bag of leftover mixed peppers for fifteen bucks to a guy who didn't speak English.
And mine is typical DelMarVa :)
All weather is wacky!!!!!
Super!!! Thanks for the info. And I’ll remember the hint about the taqueria because we have PLENTY of them around here.
My daughter (she’ll be 10 in July) loves sitting at the “stand” trying to sell mommy’s jelly! she’ll get a kick out of the peppers as well.
Not only did I not grow up with it,
We live on the marsh, so we have a pretty good idea anyway, but there are several spots jsut down the road about a 1/4 mile we know to check. No local news here, either.
Can you say LIttle Red Hen? LOL
Hot peppers are great and nothing seems to bother them. My crow likes hot pepper vinegar. Kudos to your son!
Newport is that NC
Newport, NC. Yes indeedy. The Voice doesn’t have a web site, but you can get it at local businesses, or email Josie at jmullins@ec.rr.com to get on the mailing list. Or you can email me at newportgarden@gmail.com
I live in Mill Creek, halfway between Newport and Beaufort.
A friend of ours lives in a little place called Clam that’s much closer to the Bay than we, and she was really concerned about going home last night because the ditches along the roads were filling up earlier. And of course on these winding back roads we have here there is no such thing as street lights.
Hubby made her call home to see what they had to say about the roads before she left and he would have taken her in the pickup if need be........but husband said the ditches hadn’t crested, yet.
I know the feeling! We’ve lived here long enough we know all the spots so we can say—ok, if the water is over the road here, we need to detour!
Check out this thread --- some of the comments are HILARIOUS!
Wow, such pretty pictures!
Too funny! If the envirowhackos would quit banning bug killers, we wouldn’t have to worry about it! I’d love to send them all the cockroaches and fireants I could ship. It wouldn’t be long before they were hollering for relief!
You are in another latitude, but we will soon catch up. I’m looking to those great spring days and plenty of Crappie.
You are in another latitude, but we will soon catch up. I’m looking to those great spring days and plenty of Crappie.
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