Yes its been a while

Weather here has been strange. We had such a cold, but short spell of weather. Then it warmed up. Overall its been warm now, at least warm enough for plants to begin growing. Seed has been sown and lettuce is coming up. The artichokes are growing back as are the asparagus. We’ve even begun harvesting a few asparagus. The snow peas are just starting to produce though I haven’t picked any yet.

Since we did have such a cold spell, when we got down to 17, the fruit trees (apples) have already begun flowering. One weekend we even went out and used paint brushes to pollinate them. Small apples have already begun growing. But with that cold we did lose at least a few trees. Some of the citrus frozen back as did at least one avocado. All in all I don’t think it was too bad.

Even the green house lost a few plants. Some of the house plants that had lived there froze and died. Though overall most everything survived. Even the aloe is still growing. But I think the bougainvillea is history – its branches just snap and crack when bent. 

But with the warmth we’ve had the blueberries have begun putting out berries. Even the strawberries survived the cold and are starting to produce. Though I think we’ll need to add a few to the patch.

But the new trees, especially the pomegranate Wonderful is doing well. Its actually doing better than our older pomegranate. Maybe we’ll finally get some pomegranates. I do like them.

We are having some problem with trees along the fence line. We’ve had problems with them dying. Now we’ve lost about 8 (maybe more) plants. They were trees/bushes. They were to provide privacy, but with them dying that’s not happening. So now we’re looking at pulling those trees out and putting in something new. We’re thinking about putting in Mountain Laurels. They should be a good tree/bush for Texas. They don’t tend to require much care, they certainly don’t have to be babied to grow. We’ve already put in four, but we do need more.

Today we’ve a cool day. Yesterday we had slightly warmer weather (63), but rain. So who knows. Today may be cooler (48), but at least no rain. Tomorrow we should be 70. So when I say this is strange weather, the temperature has just been up and down.