Started spring planting including peppers and three types of tomatoes; cherry, plum, and regular rounds. I usually wait until the end of January but I’m forever the optimist that the globe is really warming. That, plus I have a collection of devices designed to protect transplanted seedlings from freezing if needed. The most common mistake I make is moving immature seedlings into the garden and all the garden elements gang up on them at once. So the plan this year is to let them get bigger and stronger under my watchful eye on the porch before transplanting. That means an earlier start. I also started another row of carrots and cabbage seeds directly in the garden to extend the winter season on into April. We got a good rain soaking after that and a forecast for above average temps for the next 10 days so I’m feeling good about their chances.
Lot’s of small birds showing up in the garden so it must be some migratory thing. This morning I was greeted with a large covey of quail, a couple of small woodpeckers, cardinals and jays. No robins yet. The woodpeckers hammer away at tomato stakes and the bean trellis posts; the others just peck around the rows, I assume eating little bugs or seeds.
It’s possible, not for sure, that one of my pineapple tops is rooting or at least growing. Nancy bought two more so I whacked off the tops and planned to plant them in the same container where the first three are residing. In doing so I carefully examined the ones planted a couple of weeks back and I think, think, that there is a micro leaf starting up from the center of one of the originals. We routinely grew them back in the early 70’s but neither of us remember much about it other than they did grow and we did harvest edible fruit. I wasn’t into horticultural details back then, I guess. The other thing about pineapples is that I’ve been told they are bromiliads. I have plenty of flowering bromiliads in the jungle and treat them as semi air plants; ie they don’t really put out much of a root structure – just enough to hang on – but rely on airborne stuff for sustenance rather than roots. I’ll let you know how this experiment progresses- (or doesn’t).
Bachelorhood is looming again. Joey and Mark are taking Nancy and Mark’s mother on a four day cruise starting Sunday. The refrigerator is filling up with small containers of left overs to sustain me over the stretch. I haven’t decided yet how I’ll wile away the time but suspect there’s a surf fishing trip or two on the horizon. It’s been too wet to consider kayaking on the Tomoka. This is the middle of the “dry season” but not so much this year.
One thing I’ve noticed this year is that (I think) there’s a silver lining to Obama care. Before Obama Care, doctors’ offices were jammed and it wasn’t unusual to sit an hour in a full waiting room. Now, they’re almost empty and you get right in, on schedule, with your appointment date. I think this is a result of folks being steered toward doctors approved by their new insurance company; another way of saying it is that folks can’t necessarily go to the doctor’s they’ve used in the past. I think I’ve also spotted another disappointment with the new system. It was supposed to take care of the problems with overcrowded emergency rooms. All of those uninsured folks were supposed to now go to a regular doctor and leave the emergency rooms for emergencies. Maybe Deland and Ormond Beach and Flagler Beach are different, but those emergency rooms still look like mob scenes with runny nose kids. Even with blood dripping, it takes hours to get to a doc via the emergency room.
Joe's Blog 