We’ve reached the time of year where any time you step outside for less than 5 minutes sweat will bead and roll down your body. For me, it’s simultaneously too much and glorious. I’ve always been a heat loving person but there are definitely times when the heat gets me down and a headache comes on from the oppression of it all. But if I spend most of the day out there I will typically acclimate and be set for the day and plan to just stink to high heaven by the end of it all. I walked around the garden a few days ago and took a bunch of…

(Ahh, sweet rain! What a relief—right???) One would think that after a month or so of no rain that a few hours of rain would be a needed respite. And it was when it all started. At this point in the nearly six years (at the end of June) that we’ve been here the number of times we’ve had flooding issues has continued to grow. Frankly, sometimes I dream of a drought—yes, tempting to wish for a drought but that also has its own terrible consequences. How about some balance, Mother Nature? Or maybe we’re just screwed because we’ve effed the climate so much this is our new weather pattern?…

When we finally got the flower garden beds designed and planted five years ago we added in a plant or two of tropical milkweed in hopes of attracting monarch butterflies and caterpillars. For some reason those plants would last the year and then fade out—I’m not really sure what happened because our weather and situation is no different now than it was then, and we’ve even had colder winters since then and the tropical milkweed had returned. In Florida, we had a a couple of plants in containers and some in our front flower bed at the rental house where we would see monarch caterpillars every now and then. South…

Nearly mid-May and I’m finally here to write-up what happened around the garden and yard in April. Oh boy. I think it’s time to return to taking photos in small batches and processing them accordingly. There was a time when I was really good at that but these days I take photos and the camera languishes on my desk until I find time to process photos and then I end up with a back log of things to write about. Right now I’m only finding time to process photos on weekends or during Forest’s bath time and other than that I’m mostly finding time to do and be rather than…

A lot of these photos are going to be from March and early April. I’m working on taking photos now for another post later in the month. This spring feels like it has been a lot slower than in years past, though many plants that were slower to awaken last year due to freeze woke up earlier this time around. I’m still waiting on the Mexican flame vine. Only time will tell on that one. Strawberries have been abundant but the snails have been feasting on them before they ripen and thus many are already bad before we even get to them. Very disappointing this year. The plants waned a…

It was about two years ago I stared noticing the false nettle (Boehmeria cylindrica) coming up in the garden. It grows naturally down by the pond edge and had found itself at home in the garden. Originally I began by pulling it because: weed, but eventually I came across several mentions of it being the larval host plant to the red admiral (Vanessa atalanta) and decided to let it stay for a few seasons to see if I would ever get caterpillars using it. Eastern comma and question mark butterflies also use it but I have never seen them in our yard. Red admirals, though, they are plentiful! Last year…

So long cilantro! Milkweed seedlings #*(&$#(*& Deer! I love you Virginia creeper, but not in the garden, ok? Aristolochia fimbriata Tomatoes are now in the ground! Happy sunchokes! #(*&#$(*& Deer! Every day it is changing out there—new things sprouting and taking off by the day.

I’d like to throttle whomever put up the forecast on Weather Underground yesterday. Every time I looked, the temperatures were in the high 60s or low 70s for the next forseeable future. This morning I dressed Forest in shorts and a t-shirt and even felt how warm it was when I sent Chris and Forest off. Thirty minutes later I was out the door and enjoying the balmy morning and then ten minutes later I opened the car door to get out at work and wondered if I’d entered a different world. It was at least 15* cooler! That was not what Weather Underground said was going to happen today!…

Finally, we are edging towards warmer days. The last week or two we’ve had a series of warmer days, though yesterday we dipped back into the 30s and 40s and I was shivering once again, but we’re on the upswing. Soon I’ll be dripping in sweat when I step outside—thanks high humidity! I’m ok with that, though. Give me tank tops, shorts, and flip flops any day. The bright side is that all of the tropical plants are providing a flush of green to the garden after hibernating inside for more of the winter than usual. But the fig tree they all hang on is putting on leaf buds and…