TIME OFF FOR A LITTLE WHILE

Billy needs some help getting his catering business off the ground so I am taking a little time off from blogging to see what I can do to help. I'll be back soon. Smoked Ribs, smoked, pulled pork, BbQ and this delicious gumbo are on his menu. You know, MAN food. LOL

A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

I am thankful for the tree trimming people who left us a big bunch of wood chips for mulch. Even if they did grind up Billy's favorite Mulberry tree limbs he had set aside for his BBQ. OOPs... I guess what we had there was "a failure to communicate" as Paul Newman said. Did you know that silkworms only eat fresh Mulberry leaves? I love my Mulberry Tree because it helps to feed a lot of birds. But people do wonder what all those purple puddles are in our yard! Birds have poor toilet etiquette. I'd show you a pic of my mulch but after you've seen one pile of mulch, you've pretty mulch seen them all. LOL..It does smell so nice though. All a green, woody, nature, fruity, sort of smell. That fruity part is probably Billy's Mulberry limbs. ~00~

I don't have much available right now for mulch other than that, except pine straw in the woods. That is so hard to gather though, with all the limbs and junk in it since the winds whipped through. Thank goodness I still have some of my old hay left though. I am going to throw that over my square foot garden boxes as soon as everything is harvested.

I have to talk Billy into leaving some Okra to dry on the vine. He keeps picking it for his gumbo making. I thought I might make some of those little little angels I found over on this blog. She makes the cutest angels from Okra. You can buy dried Okra even if you can't grow it yourself, at craft stores. Check out her blog, you will love it. flaurella's blog It is not just about crafts.

GINGER PLANT--A MOSQUITO HOME

Someone pointed out to me that certain plants can be a home for mosquitoes. I never thought of that. Plants that have cups like this one, the Ginger plant, are not good plants to grow if you have Nile Fever cases in your area. We had several cases here this year and I never once thought of a plant as a home for mosquitoes. I think I will think twice about buying a plant of this type. I go around all the time looking for any thing like empty plant containers that might be holding water but it never crossed my mind to be careful about what plants I grow.

HOW TO HAVE A SPRING FLING

You have to start in the Fall to get a really pretty Spring Fling.

Start with crocus, snowdrops, and winter aconite. These just signal, Spring is here!
Others to consider are daffodils, tulips, iris, so many different varieties to choose from and anemones. Alliums, Iris, and ranunculus should be planted as soon as your weather permits. Living on the Coast, I will wait a little later to plant than a lot of you.

Early blooming snowdrops, daffodils, tulips that bloom the middle of spring and then alliums that will bloom all summer long would be a good choice. I don't have good luck with tulips, I wish I did, I love them. If I lived further North, this is what I would plant for Spring and plant them all in the same area.

It would go like this: About the time the snowdrops begin to fade the daffodils will come up and continue the show. Next the tulips will appear so you won't notice the daffodil foliage when it starts to die off. Then along comes your pretty Iris or Alliums for color that will last throughout the rest of the season.