Lost Week

Whoa! Where did THAT week go?

Time flies when you're having fun, as they say. (As I get older, the time flies even when I'm not having fun.)

But this week was a fun week. Had visits from both my sons, my daughter-in-law and all three of my grandsons. How great is that? Gave the grill a work out, had baked fish twice to make up for the red meat three times, the rain stopped for a day and we got to sit outside under the trumpet vine on the patio. (I love that trumpet vine!)

The rain is wreaking havoc on my garden. The peppers are stunted, the onions that I dug when I knew they were already too wet are rotting in storage a week after harvest. The weeds are gaining on me, and no dry days in the forecast.

If this this was my first year for gardening, I might consider myself a failure. I might decide not to try again. But, as they say in the weight loss ads, results are not typical. You may have done everything right and the weather was against you. Don't give up. Try again. Please.

Thank Goodness I Didn't Plant!

As you may remember from my last post, I was wondering whether or not to plant the tender parts of my vegetable garden, based on the "last frost date" for my area. Well, I didn't, and am I glad I waited! Last Friday night we had frost warnings.

I covered tender foliage of hostas with bed sheets. I'm glad my front yard isn't very visible from the road. Pink flowers, blue plaids and everything in between made a giant crazy quilt looking down on them from above.

The forecast Friday night was for mid-30's and clear skies-- an almost certain frost situation. As it turned out the low was 27 degrees. Eek! The grapes lost all their primary leaves, the persimmon may be gone to fruit tree Heaven. Even the cole crops and tiny beets that were supposed to take a frost are yellowed out. We had a light frost again on Saturday night. If I had planted any of the tender veggies, I'd have lost them all.

Now I have to make a hard decision. Do I replant now, losing 4 weeks of growth on some of the plants? Or do I wait the yellowed plants out to see if they recover, taking the chance of losing 5 or 6 weeks instead if I end up having to replant? What would you do?