For nearly my entire life I have always loved winter. Even after we moved to Texas, where winter is terribly short, I loved winter. I loved the short days. Every day started early and ended early. Chilly nights, cold mornings, snug as a bug in a rug. Night time was good time. I loved the night sky and even memorized the winter constellations.
No pollen.
Then I started growing things. Grass. I have a yard. Two actually. A “front” yard and a “back” yard. Both have grass. The front yard pretty much goes ignored all year. It has plenty of sun. The neighbors water their yards so prodigiously it’s rare I’ve got to set out the water sprinkler.
The back yard, on the other hand, has become a bit of a project. I’m into my 4th year of gardening. I’ve managed to build 3 raised beds and a mound of odd compost. I’ve laid sod TWICE in as many years now and have only had moderate success. I’m already planning year 3 of sod… sodding.
Looks great until it rains for 10 days straight.
I realized, quite suddenly, just a few hours ago; not only do I have a tendency to use too many commas in a run-on sentence, but I was looking forward to Spring. I planted my garden. I spent hours weeding my lawn and cleaning the mulch beds. Which all, by the way, led to the mound of compost. And now I can’t wait for it all to GROW.
I checked my calendar and apparently I’m due for a midlife crisis. Average life span of an American male and all I’m right at MID. As in halfway there. As many years ahead as behind. Sports cars, booze, and all that “stuff”.
I have apparently bypassed that and have gone straight to “old fogey”. I want to see pretty flowers in my beds. I want to see tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and onions blooming.
I’m going to grow hops this year.
I’m impatient to see a green lawn and leaves on the trees. I actually hate that the medians on the roads have better looking yards than mine. Every day I come home my crepe myrtal looks accusingly at me, “what have you done to me!!?”
If my deed restrictions allowed it, I’d have chickens. In a coop. I do like eggs.
It’s only March 2, and I want things to grow.
And then there’s SUMMER!
All winter my girls have been pretending its summer. They dress-up in the bathing suits and pretend to swim.
They had even, at one point, turned the entire living room into a swimming pool. I had to walk around it. NO RUNNING!
So there it is. While there are plenty of things I hate about summer (110ยบ for ten days straight, electric bills, sweat, sun burns… I could go on) I love happy children and growing things.
I've just planted my own hop rhizomes and was wondering how your's got on last year. I'm hoping the drought won't be as bad this year. I've started my own blog to document any progress I might make :)
ReplyDeletehopstarter.blogspot.com
Last year was a true scorcher. With all those days over 100 and no rain.
ReplyDeleteI actually kept a zillions photos documenting my hops, but the HD I get them on... died. I lost all my data.
In short, I planted 3 varieties, two rhizomes each. Cascades, Centennials, and Magnums. I built a raised bed, rather than use pots. The Cascades did the best. They produced continuously, but if the cone stayed on the bine too long, it scorched. Cascades grew 10 ft and were the only ones to produce cones. Magnums grew 6 feet, no cones, and the leaves continuously turned brown and fell. The centennials barely grew out of the ground. I watered them daily to keep them cool.
Most of the info I used came from Chris Colby's articles and blog.
All in all, my goal for last year was simply to get the root system established. Goal achieved. As for today, the cascades and magnums are sprouting.
Thanks for the info, much appreciated. Last year was exceptional though. I'm hoping this year will be more reasonable, we've certainly had a lot more rain already.
ReplyDeleteI've planted slightly different varieties. You can follow how they do on my blog hopstarter.blogspot.com
Glad to hear about yours sprouting this year. Hopefully they'll go onto greater things.