Winter is Back!

 No one that I know invited winter back but, nonetheless, winter is visiting for a few days. Our low tomorrow night will be 15; our high on Monday will be just around freezing and our low Monday night will be in the low 20's. I don't see any more temps that low through April 12, which is as far as I can see. I won't plant anything tender until after Mother's Day though.

One thing I don't have to worry about are the elderberries because . . they are gone!

It is a very sad story. I am NOT happy about it. I thought I was past the tears but . . I guess maybe not yet. These were the very first thing I planted when we bought this house in 2020. There are a few small bushes that I planted from cuttings but they're outside the fence and the deer will get most of those. I loved the elderberries and I loved the flowers. OK . . it's done. We move on.

Peonies will be blooming soon. I've covered those with straw. I've never grown them before doing it here so I have no idea how they will handle a hard freeze but hopefully with the ground being somewhat warm and a thick blanket of straw, they will be ok.

I've covered several of the raised beds with straw - onions, rhubarb, garlic. I'm thinking they will be fine without it but since we have the straw, I spread it over them. 

There is one mineral tub that has some kind of squash from last year that came up volunteer. I covered those hoping to protect them but I have no idea if they will survive. They don't like cold temps. I'm guessing if they don't make it, maybe there are some seeds that haven't sprouted yet and they may come up after the cold. I love volunteer plants!

I do have beets, cabbage and carrots planted and they haven't come up yet so I left them alone.

One thing I know we're going to lose . . 

The buds are opening on one of the pear trees. One tree had buds several weeks ago when we had a freeze so this means two of our three pear trees will not produce this year. A "critical temperature" chart tells me anything below 25 degrees will kill 25% of the ability to produce fruit and anything below 19 degrees will kill 90% of the ability to produce fruit so I'd say we'll be lucky to get pears off one tree.

My most precious and loved tree now that the elderberries are gone is the sour cherry. Those buds are still tight. I may lose 10% with a 15 degree temp but there are a lot of buds and I will need to thin some of the fruit if a lot of those buds produce. I'm pretty optimistic they cherries will be fine. 

The peaches and plums are pretty much in full bloom but we do have two trees that are in pots and they're blooming like crazy. Young trees won't produce much but a plum or two would be very nice. They will be in the heated garage, along with the bay leaf trees, for the next few days.

It's too expensive to heat the greenhouse so I've brought all my little seedlings inside the house.

I'll be hoping for the best - especially with that one pear tree and the cherry tree.