Our spring like weather disappeared over the last couple of days. Bitter cold has worked its way into Wilson Holler. We had a few flurries yesterday but not enough for a proper skiff of snow.
The wind has howled! Sunday night I don’t think there was one minute that my wind chimes weren’t tinkling out their sound for the night around them to hear.
Last week we had several days that felt like spring of the year.
I took advantage of one of them to up pot our cabbage seedlings. Both varieties we planted (Flat Dutch and Copenhagen) are doing well.
I carried them all out to the greenhouse where it didn’t matter if I made a mess and moved the tiny seedlings to solo cups so their roots will have more room to grow.
Once I finished, I watered them good and then carried them back inside. We’ll keep them under the grow lights for another week or so before we move them out to the green house to continue growing until we plant them.
The peppers we planted are just now beginning to come up. It takes them a while longer to sprout.
I’ll up pot them in the next two weeks or so, but we’ll keep them inside where it’s warm for a longer time than we do the cabbage.
We’ve been planting our carrots in February, but it looks like March will have to do this year.
Tipper
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It’s been below freezing here at nigjt. We had a few warmer day too. It been in the 40’s and 50’s the past couple of days. I went again and bought a few cabbage plants for our mennonite friends. I going to seed the rest this week and get them started. That warmer weather really makes me want to get out and plant some stuff. Ive got onion sets waiting to go out and I’m about ready to go ahead and plant potatoes…. Can’t wait!!!
It is pretty cold here today as well, and we are going to get a little snow- about 1″ is all that is called for. I am cozied up by our woodstove as I type this. It’s one thing that makes winter extra enjoyable. I enjoyed listening to Paul and Pap pick and grin while making breakfast this morning on the Blind Pig YouTube channel. It is so wonderful how much footage you have captured of your parents and family. Continuing to hold you all close in heart as you navigate life without sweet Granny.
Why do you up pot you seedlings? Wouldn’t it be better for the plant to put the seed in the pot will live in until time to go in the ground. Plants often get stunted and sometimes die if their roots are disturbed. None of them like it.
Sure you could do that if you wanted to 🙂 I prefer to do it like I do it. The smaller containers are easier for me to fool with until I know for sure the seedling is going to sprout and grow.
Sorry
🙂 No need to be sorry. Everyone has their own way, doesn’t mean mine is the only one.
Most seedlings do better if transplanted into their final pot. If you put a seed into a final pot, there’s risk of overwatering it and fungal problems setting in due to the ratio of soil to root system. Yes, large seeds like cabbage,broccoli, sunflowers, dahlias, etc will do well if directly planted, but you aren’t gaining any time by starting them that way.
I have a degree in horticulture and spent over 40 years as a greenhouse production manager. You are right that the root systems can be damaged if disturbed; that’s why you have to be very careful.
Tipper: I saw a Youtube video on “seed starting snails”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfDU3wDmrdo
Have you tried this yet?
My weather is about like yours in Wilson’s Holler, bitter cold, windy, and looks like a snow globe outside. When we had the spring-like temps last week, I had been pulled into my garage with a bag of potting soil for about a minute when we had one of the worst hailstorms I had seen in years. This bone-chilling weather has made me put my gardening plans on hold. Mom always planted her lettuce bed on Valentine’s Day, no matter what kind of weather it was, the bed had been ready since the fall, covered up and waiting. I plant my heirloom tomato seeds on St. Patrick’s Day, and buy more from my friend who grows non-heirloom varieties at the local high school greenhouse. I end up planting around 30 or 40 so I can be sure the deer, rabbits, skunks, coons, groundhogs, and other thieves have plenty to eat by about July. I’m missing Granny like she’s kin.
I don’t recall mama ever pre-planting anything but would just wait until the ‘time was right’ and plant directly into the garden – and we had some really bad, fridged winters with a quite a few feet of snow and howling winds right off the glaciers – but when spring hit so did planting time for whatever was being grown that year. Now with living in a concrete jungle, I no longer garden, but I do have a Thanksgiving/Christmas cactus that was my husbands that he had for many years, so it is at least nearing 50 years old. He asked me to look after his ‘baby’ before he died, and I have done my best to do so. Though it used to bloom in abundance for him 2-3 times a year, when he died at the end of November 2019 it quit blooming. It looked healthy overall, and grew many ‘arms’ of greenery, it just would not bloom. As I write this, though it is in an ‘off season’ for blooming, it is giving me BLOOMS!!! and I am so thrilled. 🙂
We got about 8 more inches of snow last night. Hubby says it looks like a foot on top of the carport. The grandkids will be with us tomorrow and they are going to enjoy making a snowman and sledding. It’s such a good feeling to play out in the snow and come in for a hot chocolate and relaxing. I believe kids (and me) need to go out to play..for even a few minutes each day. It clears our heads and brightens the day. It will be sometime before we think about gardens…although our garlic we planted late last fall is up about an inch or two. Sending prayers for everyone who has requested them.
I’ve got my Cherokee purple sprouting inside. I’ll have to up pot them soon. First time for Cherokee purple. It will warm up shortly here in Florida.
Cold days! Despite the weather we took a day trip and celebrated our 51st anniversary Sunday! We are blessed! Prayers for all those who requested on this Blind Pig blog. Would like to order a couple of those mugs y’all have
Congratulations on y’all’s 51st anniversary. I had planned to do something special on our 50th anniversary for my wife. But God had other plans. Neither we or either of our parents had the money to give us for much of a honeymoon. We married on Saturday, went and walked around Chimney Rock, NC area on Sunday, came home and went back to work on Tuesday with only $10 to our name and two small pay checks later on in the week.
We really got spoiled last week with those warm temps, and now winter has slapped us back down with the reminder that he’s still here. I’ve been spreading our wood ashes on the garden spot and getting buckets of rabbit manure from a friend so we’re ready to go when the weather finally turns. Can’t wait to get in the garden again!
We had a teasing of spring as well, and it was such a blessing! However, after church on Sunday later that afternoon it started snowing and we received about two inches of snow. It was beautiful, a touch of the Masters hands painted such a beautiful scene.
Fredericksburg, Va.
Good morning Tipper, Matt and Acorns. It is 14F at 6″43 am in the mountains of NE TN. The sun just lit up the sky at the “crack of dawn”. Have y’all ever heard that “crack” on a still morning? I have. Everyone ought to try it. It isn’t just a sound it is a feeling; it concusses. There is an actual sound wave that hits you. We are looking for temps to get to 32F this afternoon. I will try to scrape some ice and snow off the car and head out to pick up my son’s meds at the pharmacy and pick up some salad and other perishables. First, I gotta get my lazy bones out of my warm bed and wash my sheets so I can get them hung on the living room clothesline. I’ll keep everyone here and up Wilson Holler in my prayers. I love y’all.
Back when I hunted and fished, many times I was out either in the words or on a lake at the crack of dawn, everyone owes it to themselves to get away from the city and experience this at least once in their life. In the past, my favorite thing to do at Myrtle Beach (besides look at the girls) was to watch the sun come up and go down over the ocean. I can’t believe I wrote that about the girls- the devil made me do it! Even though I only live a little over 200 miles away, it has been over 20 years since I have been to the beach. I had a lot better go to the mountains.
I guess I am lucky, I’ve never lived in a city.
I was about 30 years old before I ever saw a beach. I have been back a handful of times since but never enjoyed a minute of it. It’s just not in in my nature I guess. When I lose sight of the mountains I start to feel out of place. I tried laying on the sand and watching the waves come in and listening to them crash on the shore but in less than 10 minutes my imagination flips me to a scene of a clear stream rushing down the mountain, over a waterfall and into a shaded pool below.
Blindpigandtheacorn is part of my early morning routine and it disappeared from my email for 10 days for some reason. My daughter got it back for me and I’m so happy to have you back!
It’s so cold in Monroe Georgia. Low twenties the last couple of days. If it’s going to be this cold we need to at least have some snow!
I’m missing Granny and Paul singing together but she must be singing with Pap in Heaven
Prayers and Love to you and your precious family❣️
it’s 18° here at 6: 28 a.m., I’m going to see a GI doctor today, pray about that for me please, I’ve had to quit taking my blood thinner to get some teeth pulled tomorrow, pray about that too please, remember my brother, his oxygen got low, he had to go to another hospital, his favorite hospital Northside Forsyth, was packed and he couldn’t go, 911 took him to Northeast Georgia Gainesville, they put him on oxygen made some more pictures and sent him home, he’d never been on oxygen up until this time, please continue to pray and thank you for praying and God bless you
Norman, I’m praying for you both and will keep praying!
Thank you for remembering me in your prayers. I feel guilty sometimes for asking when some people have such moving requests, but mine are important to me and my family. You and Katie said God never forgets our prayers in the live. I don’t know why, but I’ve never thought of that before and I needed to hear it. I’m praying for all the requests I can’t name them all but God knows, and I pray for His hand on all of us.
Kourtni, your prayer request on Tipper’s videos seems to grab my attention, as I went through something similar several years ago due to a spider bite on my ankle. After the months I spent going to a wound care center, I heard about the miracles folks have reported after using mashed figs as a poultice. Its use is mentioned in the Bible! What can it hurt to try it? Yes, I am praying for you!
Right now in southern Greenville County it is 20 degrees, Tuesday night is forecast to be 40 degrees. I had to be out in the weather yesterday and even though it was a sunny near 40 degrees afternoon the strong wind was brutal. Being the idiot that I am I was just wearing a T shirt while out and about. I very seldom ever wear more than a heavy flannel shirt for a jacket. I have never had any luck with trying to start and grow my own seed. My mother and father in law would both plant all of their tomato seed in some type of outside container and cover it either with an old window frame or glass plane and have nearly ever seed come up, and then plant these bare root tomato plants in rows, not stake them and have tomatoes by the bucket full. They did wait until later on when it was warmer to sow their seed.
While I was out yesterday wearing a t shirt, I saw a younger lady out with a sweat shirt on that barely reached past the necessities. I THINK she had shorts on underneath her shirt!
That WARNT NO LADY-that was a LUCI goosie!
Of course I had to look, how else would I have known how short her shirt was? When I said lady, I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt! Seriously this happened at the new Greenville County, SC Administration building, a very public and busy place. What has became of modesty and self respect for some?
You sure are making me want to start planting. We just got a lot of snow, so that ain’t happening. I did manage to make some sourdough while staying inside during the storm. I just put my first load in the oven.
Continuing to pray for you during your grief. I truly understand the lonesomeness.
God bless!!