Anna Hutchins

Hey May I don't think we're that much warmer? We just got lucky this year and didn't get as cold as people around us. We did get that sudden swing down to I think it was 14 Fahrenheit in April. That was pretty brutal.

And sorry my second picture has drunken sailor energy. I thought I'd gotten the whole fig in frame. Let's try again.

I'm not sure if it was this thread but somewhere on the Permies forum I got the idea to also lay branches of my Chicago Hardy Fig on the ground.  You have to steal a great idea when you find it!  

It's this fig's second winter.  It came back from the roots the first winter even though it was heavily mulched.  This winter I just weighed the easily bent branches down with rocks then covered them with leaves and wood chips.

Some branches definitely budded out above the ground this spring although not all the branches I attempted to cover were covered well enough and so some didn't make it.  Anyways, 3 days ago I got our first fig which my daughter promptly consumed.  I didn't keep records to know when we started getting fruit last year, but I'm almost certain it was later than now!

Also the thing is a monster this year! Since it's right in front of my house I think I'm going to have to trim some of the branches back just so they don't get over the gutters. There is a chance that I can't take responsibility because we did have a somewhat mild winter. We never got below zero fahrenheit, although we did have those crazy temperature swings in the spring.

Here are a few more pictures in case you guys aren't tired of looking at figs.  The first one was right after it started leaving out in the spring and the other two are right now.

My first thought for a winter blooming flower is hellebores. I have them in my yard here in my Midwest garden and they bloom in late February. The blooms do dry and stay on for quite a while though.  I don't know but suspect that they can't handle flooding. So you'll have to have them in pots. Oh and by the way they're poisonous.

Here's a picture of mine in my yard. They're all purple but I know that they come in pink and white.

Butte, I assume you have a machine that does that? That's a really cool way to recycle it!

I guess my one concern is if you're heating up a bunch of different plastics and just pressing them into a board, does the timber ever leak anything back into the soil since it had such various sources.  The plants are right there to take up any toxins.

I didn't know they would chew on bones! I always thought they just ate slugs and snails.

Where we live the municipality shoots them off at around 9:50.... So my kids got to stay up really late. But they enjoyed it!  The loss of sleep will probably catch up and they'll be cranky tonight around bedtime or sooner.

We have Eastern prickly pear (Opuntia humifusa) around here. For some reason I really didn't think they were edible, just different species down south.   I had given up on growing cactuses for edibility completely!  I guess now they're back on my radar! And not only that but it looks like the plains cactus (Opuntia polyacantha) also grows around here and blooms in different colors.

Yours are beautiful by the way! I'm always looking for attractive plants to add to my landscape since I am in an urban area.

I went shopping for cherries and a microphone stand today.

Bought a bing. Bought a boom.

Timothy Norton wrote:

I also have recently received a chainmail scrubber for my cast iron and it works amazingly on my pans, especially when things get accidently burnt.

I'm coming back to say that I did buy a chain mail scrubber and it does work great.

Also in other news, I still have not managed to get a thick season on this pan. But I use it for things that don't need to come off perfectly so that's fine. The weirdest thing I've had happen with this pan is as follows.   I saw a cooking tip on a YouTube video claiming that baking soda makes meat (and veggies) brown better because of the change in pH. Well I wanted to try it of course.  I think it instantly removed the seasoning from my cast iron because the onions that I was cooking suddenly turned bright yellow!  I wish I'd been smart enough to take a picture! The only thing I can figure is that it took like years of embedded color from various curries off. So avoid super high pH as well as low ph I guess!

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:I bought orach from experimental farm network. This is my second year of growing it. I left some bare ground where I let themself seed. But oddly, I have no seedlings this year. What I DO have is what appears to be growth from last year's roots. First pics from April 11. Second set, today. Anyone else have what appears to be perennial orach? Maybe it a short lived one?

Joylynn, I'm almost positive that that is a hardy hibiscus of some kind, especially with that big bloom. Those are perennials and they can sometimes come up from seed.