Freeeeeeezing

In Maryland, what most think of as winter typically doesn't start until January. And then it's still averaging lows in the 30's and highs in the 40's. We usually get a few snow events a year, which melts within a day or two...and then we get slammed with some crazy blizzards every few years.
But in general - I love our mild winters!

This year, though has been CRAZY!

We had pretty extreme freezes in November (again, not a crazy time of year for the first frost, but definitely colder than usual).

And we had 2 or 3 actual snows in December! (And by actual I mean it stuck! And accumulated!)

And then there was the week between Christmas and New Year's which started a 2 week streak of highs in the teens and twenties and lows in the single digits!

That is insane!

We may get a day or two like that, but two weeks of it?! Yowser!

Very, very curious how my plants will do :-/


Suddenly those where I've pushed the envelope of zone 7 with are probably not going to be looking so hot come spring.

Of course this is also the year I decided to put some perennials in pots on the deck...and you KNOW pots raised on a 2nd story deck with intense wind aren't staying warmer like the deeper earth below! Figures.


Many of my evergreen bushes are looking real sad.

Browned and droopier than usual (they looked worse in the thick of the freeze; these were taken recently and we've had warmer temps again - up to 65! - since then).

And I have absolutely no hope for the camellias which have already struggled in their front bed locations and we just re-planted again last year and now this :-/

Looking veeeeery Charlie Brown Christmas Tree-ish :-(

One thing I know: plants are spectacularly hardy.

But this was rough; very, very rough.

Come on, spring!

Peanut Harvest

Well hello there, strangers!

Yes, I am enjoying my 2 months without gardening (although the 60 degree weather started giving me a teeny bit of the gardening bug). Not that I don't love gardening, but it's nice to have a little bit of time to focus on other things.

But I did finally take advantage of a break in the psychotically frigid weather to finish brushing the dirt off the now-dried peanuts and roasting them!

Here's the whole bunch when I harvested them.

And the crop after roasting!

Not the largest abundance, but very decent considering only about 4 of the peanut plants actually "took" in the bed this year.


Just a side note: peanuts are a pain in the patootie to "clean"!
Aside from individually scrubbing each one with a slightly abrasive scrubby, you'll never get all the dirt off...and there was NO way I was individually scrubbing each one!

I would put them bunches at a time into a mesh bag and shake it all around so that they'd help clean the dirt off each other...I also put the scrubby in the bag to help give more abrasion too!

(And then of course the time I didn't have the opening held closed all the way so there went half the crop flinging all over the yard when I started shaking!   [sigh]   You're welcome, squirrels for whichever ones I missed in my pick-up.)

So after I do the best I can, I just give up and we know not to chew on the shells.