Brrrrr from Anita!
The hard work is done.
Long before we even moved, I was thinking about my next garden and drew a primitive plan to work toward. It was so rocky on top of the hill, I knew the only hope for a garden close to the house was going to be tough.
Building raised beds and bringing in soil, fencing and trenching for a water faucet, all the beginning prep work for a new garden that has to happen before planting, was incrementally accomplished last year and not by me.
Directly anyway…
Just me gently bossing everybody around, in a nice way, of course.
I didn’t expect to plant a thing since there wasn’t much time last year. We were totally preoccupied with construction of a place to live and getting out of the RV. But, with all those big strong men running around, I knew some of their hours could be siphoned off for my garden project!
Tomato plants are so plentiful here and easy to grow in the Texas heat, when I showed up with armloads of potted plants and a case of Corona’s, I wound up with a 4x8 raised bed bursting with basil, cherry tomatoes and a couple of peppers.
The little bit of time I spent watering each day was a lifesaver in the midst of such chaos. It became a peaceful rhythm and kept me grounded. The workers brought me little seedlings. They took pride in the garden too and sometimes watered for me if it looked too dry. We began amending the topsoil with all the abundant manure and shavings from the horse stalls and chicken pen.
Later, in the fall, I tried my hand with a packet of heirloom Lacinto Kale seeds. I took the advice of my green thumb daughter in law, Sarah, and used the entire packet in one little area. Seeds are cheap, after all. They seemed to take FOREVER to grow, but in about three months I had a semi decent crop, enough to supplement a salad and make me feel very healthy as I ate it.
It’s still growing even after a 3 day freeze! (with a tarp over it)
Almost all gardeners began to get restless when it’s too cold to plant something outside. I’m no exception. We’re forced to tend houseplants.
I’ve been doting on the few plants that had to come inside, like my extravagant tropical hibiscus.
It was a splurge when I bought the 3 foot bush covered in pink, yellow and sunset tinged blossoms. The stamens are so delicate with incredibly deep shades of color, I couldn’t resist a nod to my Hawaiian childhood years, even though I don’t have a green house.
Yet….
One hot Texas day, I passed by a plumeria and the fragrance instantly knocked me back to the innocent days of my sister and I stringing leis in the back yard with a needle and thread.
I still remember riding through seemingly endless acres of Dole pineapple fields and the acrid smell of burning sugar cane.
Hawaii had just become a state a couple of years earlier.
We spent long days on our own stretch of backyard beach behind the flimsy officers housing with treacherous waves and riptides, and no one even gave it a thought. My brothers made their own surf boards and hit the real waves on the North side where world class surf champions are born.
It broke my Southern Mother’s heart when my Navy Dad got orders to cold, grey Philadelphia. of all the places we had been stationed, Hawaii was the place she blosommed.
She blamed him for not jockeying for a better position as a senior officer. She never could adjust to Yankees and snow.
We had truly left Eden.
As soon as I turned 18, she bailed out of the kind of winter that nearly killed George Washington and the dream of America. Taking my sister, she fled for Southern California and eventually back to Hawaii.
That gorgeous, impractical hibiscus reminds me of her singing and laughter and I’ve happily been nursing it through the mild Texas winters ever since.
After many many plant assaults, a calf mauling, a chicken raid and last week, Chuck put the still budding bush outside to bask in the warm sun and to his horror, the horses snatched it and knawed most of the greenery off.
She has about three leaves, but is getting extra love, with my hardy geraniums, on my sunny kitchen and the wood stove, as close to the tropics as it will ever be. I think she’s a survivor like we all became, back in the snow drifts outside of Philadelphia, nearly a half century of winters ago.
My Dad remarried and maintained an acre of neatly manicured lawn, carefully pruned flowering dogwoods and cherry blossom trees, rhodedendrum, tulips and goldenrods in the summer. He cheerfully shovelled and plowed snow in the winter staying in that house for fifty years.
My Mom also remarried, another pilot and they bought a big sailboat and a condo on the beach. They happily travelled the world, singing and dancing in warmer climes for another half a lifetime.
Both parents made their peace with each other, albeit several thousand miles away.
Me? I started peeking at seed catalogs in December and may just get serious about ordering on these long dark nights of winter, remembering that spring is just around the corner.
I just know I can recreate Eden this time….
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Thanks for the oh-so-welcome, beautiful flower pics. They've brightened up my day already!
Anita it is so cold up here that our water lines in the house froze up in 4 places [plumber has been repairing them on for five days ] and the water froze up in the tank of our toilet and broke it So much for global warming cause it is not here Hope it is warmer down there A long time before any gardening up here