Check yesterday's post for the Good Food and Hobart Sunday update that we know many of you enjoy. I was late putting it up.
It was a warm weekend, but overcast (and VERY windy) with a change in the weather coming this week...
This was Saturday. As you can see, the grass has not come back yet, though there is green starting to appear. The Zen Machine is in the shop with its annual maintenance being done. Got the estimate the other day, the only thing it needed were four new deck wheels. It really needed it last year but we put it off. They were bent in the "great mud pit incident of 2021", LOL. It was time so they'll do that this week and all the lubricants and filters etc and even promised to throw in a "bath", ha. It should be ready for its closeup soon.
There was stuff to do at the farm and I did a couple of small projects but I just wasn't really in the mood. That happens sometimes. I haven't been bitten by the "Spring bug" yet but I know it's coming.
I think I just need the weather to feel more like Spring. This week we are expecting rain a couple of days and then not one but two cold fronts. No freezes but back to the 30's/40's, sigh. Kind of just makes you not want to do anything outside.
Speaking of freezes...
These are the bananas.
We weren't able to cover them in time for an unexpected midweek freeze. We had held out hope that maybe it wasn't quite cold enough that week to affect them but the wind blowing across the porch probably caused this, wind-chill is just as bad.
And this is the other pineapple.
It's dead as well. Darn it. We know some of you said to leave it so see if it would come back and for now it's still there but there is no green inside and it's kind of mushy. We'll still leave it, it's not in the way, and we'll see what happens. This was just a fun experiment so we knew they were sensitive to freezes.
It's sad we lost the bananas and the pineapples but we're thinking of some options for greenhouses at some point. When we have that, there will be pineapples in our future for sure and the bananas can be kept until they are large enough to go in the ground and we're there to keep an eye on them. They were a gift from a coworker and when I told her, she said her parents have the "mother tree" and it survived all the freezes so she'll get us some more "pups" to start again.
Come on Spring, we are ready for this gloomy, cold, rainy Winter to be over.
#ReadyForSpring
Just hold off on your banana. It may look dead but some Spring you just may have new suckers coming up. It has happened to me before; looking dead but came Spring I noticed new suckers coming up out of the ground. Just cut the dead stuff off down to ground level and wait and see what happens. After you cut the dead stalks, either bring inside or cover it so it stays warm, giving it light during the day.
ReplyDeleteHad rain showers off and on during the night and temperature is in the 30's at the moment but down in the 20's for Tuesday night.
Spring is just getting dinged a bit.
ReplyDeleteOne word: orangerie
I am hoping if you hear the word often enough, it will stick.
I used to have bananas growing in the ground. They froze to the ground each winter but then came back from their roots in the Spring. So don’t throw away your banana plant.
ReplyDeleteWow, it got really cold today! Looks like I will get one more freeze - 31 is predicted for Saturday morning and 33 for Sunday morning.
Stay warm!
🌻🌻🌻
I noticed you have part of a bag of straw / mulch there.
ReplyDeleteOnce you cut down the brown dead stalks, cover the soil in the pot with that what you have there and sometime in Spring early summer you should be having young banana 'pups' peeking through the soil.
It is normal for banana plants to freeze in our area if planted in the ground. After all they are tropical plants. Like canna's, once the stems/green turns brown, then cut that off so new growth can begin. It's the green/leafy part of the plant that nourishes the bulbs, rhizomes of the plants.
If you plant tropicals in containers then you may want to bring inside during the cold/freezing months of winter.