yikes, we've been frostbitten!!!--Dianne

Here in Indiana we have had a wacky late winter/spring.  80 degrees and trees almost fully leafed out.  Flowers blooming 2-4 weeks ahead of schedule.  Lots of things blooming at the same time that usually never do....

After recovering from midnight Paschal service yesterday, April 15, I was up and  out trying to spread some mulch around in a front flower bed and found that my hostas got very frostbitten in a couple of frosts last week.  Their cells literally exploded in the leaves.  The leaves look watery, limp, and pale.  They feel almost slimey. 

I have hydrangeas that are blackened, all new growth has been killed off.  Several other shrubs in the garden are looking bad, like Rose of Sharon.  The newest leaves on some plants are dead, crispy, black ick on the ends of branches.

I had put out some early crop broccoli along with cabbages.  They are showing some stress, as in light patches on leaves.  I believe they will recover, since we had a nice rain in the night Saturday.

I have been researching what to do with my frostbitten plants... 

A) Leave trees alone.  They will put out new growth, and push off the deadened leaves.  Do NOT fertilize.  Do NOT prune heavily.  You may do some light trimming back of damaged leaves, but no heavy branch trimming.  Give it time to recover.

B) Hostas and other smaller plants, it is okay to trim them back.  They will also put out new leaves.  Do NOT fertilize.  Fertilizing them now puts extra strain on them to put out leaves while they are recovering.  It could overwork the plant.  In fact, what I read said not to fertilize them at all until next year. Tomatoes will probably not recover if frostbitten.

C)  Make sure your plants are getting enough water to continue new growth. It has actually been dry here, and I had been watering anyway.  Now I must continue, to reduce stress load on recovering plants.  

Having married a former corn/bean dairy farmer,  I have learned to "farm" as we drive around.  We inspect fields, and he tells me yet again what has been chisel plowed, but not planted.   Two weeks ago, as we drove to Lafayette, and a grain truck in front of us drove over the center line and then off the side on the right.  I was freaking out!  I screamed at Bill, "What's he doing up there?"  Because NO one wants a fully loaded grain truck to spill in front of them!  Bill swerved a bit too, and replied, "Well, he probably just saw that guy over there planting corn the first week of April."   Sheesh...See what happens when the weather warms up?

This appears to be a 5 row planter.  Some can have many more attachments on the back and plant huge fields in much less time.  See the fertilizer tank on the front of the tractor?
So, last week, driving back from Indy, I actually saw corn up about 3 inches in a field.  I hope it survived the frost.

Here's a picture of frostbitten corn, about the same size that I saw. 

Like last year, I have repotted tomato plants in a wheelbarrow, and have been dragging it in and out of the garage everyday.  No frost bite and the plants are doing well!!

woohoo!  Just received my new issue of Urban Farm in the mail, time to find and pass on the last one to Maria. 

I hope you have all found an allergy medicine that makes you feel better with this early onslaught of every freakin' allergen in the world that has descended upon us early this year.  Every morning I have to pry my eyes open, and then they are swollen most of the morning.

Happy Gardening!! 

Dianne, dirt, allergies, and all

It's spring in March, Tra, La, La!!!-- Dianne

Wow!! I don't care if it's global warming, or climate change, or diddly,  we gots us some warm weather here in Indiana, and I stayed out in it all afternoon.  (by the way, California broke snow records this weekend, don't care how it works, just as long as they get it, and we don't).

THIS is what I have going on in my garden at the moment!! Primroses, dainty little primroses.  So many bright colors, and so happy to make your acquaintance!!

This is wood poppy,  mine are white at the moment, or else what I have blooming is not this.  Anyway, I dug them up out of our woods on the family farm,  so I don't feel badly about moving them.

Have you seen any of these lovely ladies blooming?  Magnolias, dahrlin', magnoooolias.  It's the middle of March in Indiana, and these beauties are popping out in splendid color like there's a pageant going on somewhere and they don't want to miss it!!  Weeks early, and just so darned gorgeous. 

I found pansies at Wally World yesterday, and got them into the ground,  here and at church.  I spent some time cleaning up both gardens, and getting them ready for the spring onslaught of blooms. I will have to insert later a picture of our beautiful lenten rose at church.  All the other photos I pulled off the net because it's 10 at night, and I haven't taken pictures yet.  I did some moving of plants, split some iris and daffodils.  They should be fine to bloom soon. 


Today I worked out my deltoids, my triceps, biceps, my quadraceps, my gluteuses, the major, the minor and the median, my ACL, and all those other muscles that are now crying out for attention.  (see how I knew all those muscles' names?  I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology, trying to get into nursing school) .Especially my shovelin' shoulder, the right one.  I hauled quite a few wheelbarrow loads of mulch given to me free from my friendly local stump grinder guy out to some of the flower beds.  And now I hurt.  I ache, I need a massage.

I pulled weeds, raked leaves, and prayed that all this great weather  would stick around. I noticed that the trees are even leafing out early, which could be bad for them if we get hit with a snow storm.  Snow on leaves tends to weigh down limbs, which then break and hit power lines.  I think everyone in Indiana is extremely happy about all this, but we are all wary of the next month's weather.

  I moved some shrubs with Bill's help yesterday.  I dug a hole bigger than the root ball of the plant I was moving,  and loosened up the soil in the hole. I carefully dug around the base of the shrub in a circle, and worked my shovel carefully under the plant around in the circle again, to loosen and trim the roots.  I lifted carefully, and moved the shrub to its new hole.  I made sure to orient the plant in the same direction it had been, so as to not confuse the plant.  No one wants to look out in their garden and have a plant looking like it just got off the bus at the wrong stop.  Seriously, plants grow according to where the light is,  so if you move something, make sure the north side of the plant stays to the north in the new hole. I lightly tamped down the soil around the plant, and watered thoroughly.  Notice I said "carefully" a lot?   Sometimes I put some fertilizer or a shovelful of mulch in the hole, but these are native shrubs, and don't really need it.  Native plants probably never really need fertilizing, they are meant to be here, in this soil, in this climate, so let them grow naturally.   Besides, it won't be really hot for a while, so they should acclimatize well before the summer heat hits.

I told someone again yesterday about that fabulous daylily farm in Darlington.  If you don't have big plans for the summer, and need  just a short road trip to get out of the house, or to avoid mowing,  drive east of Darlington on 47 until you see the Sugar Creek Daylily Farm sign.  Greg Lough is one of the nicest gardeners you'll meet, and he digs big clumps, great deal for your dollar.  Wear some walking shoes, you'll be there a while.  Look back in the blog to last summer to see some pictures of his 1600 VARIETIES, not just plants.  The catalog needs its own zipcode.

So, to plant seeds outside yet or not?   Lettuce, spinach, beets, radishes, potatoes, peas could all be put out now, since the ground is workable, and they aren't scared of a little cold weather, should we get some.
I'll have to haul myself over to ProGreen, my neighbor Steve's nursery on 231 to get some red potato starts.  Maria, my intrepid blogging partner, has already started several packs of seeds, in her rigged up greenhouse inside. I  don't know if any have hit the garden yet.  She's quite ambitious.  I'm still in mourning for the greenhouse I left behind 7 years ago at the old house, and just can't be bothered setting up all the inside stuff like she has.  We put in a big order to Gurney's when they had their "buy $100/ get $100 stuff free", we couldn't pass that up.  I bought some row covers on hoops about 18" high. .  I should get them out so I can start some stuff out in the garden. 

Okay, time for Tylenol.  I hope you all at least got to enjoy the sunshine this weekend.  It's good for your body, your attitude, and your soul.

Yes, the water ran brown in the shower today.  The dirt on my pants may even clog up the washer.   I have officially started the gardening year!

Dianne, dirt and all.