Winter Garden

For the last few days we have awoken to the sight of frost on the fields and that dreaded acrid odor of frozen vegetation. I drive the mile up our driveway to get the newspapers, glad of those ridiculous heated seats. I can see that the day will be brilliant blue but I know that it will be cold all day and we'll be wearing those oddly assorted layers of all the winter gear we Floridians can find. Last week I was wearing shorts and this development makes me crabby.

After breakfast I make the rounds to mourn the demise of the Mexican petunias, the beach sunflowers I have enjoyed all summer and the succulants around the water garden. The pentas are limp and blackened, the ferns possibly hanging on until they are killed by another couple of frosts forecast for the rest of the week. The plumbago is still bravely blooming as are the knock out roses. We covered the newly planted citrus trees and the big begonia. I had taken all the orchids into the house. But there are so many plants and not enough sheets and clothespins to save all the plants.

The vegetable garden has been hanging on with the collards, broccoli, spinach and peas. The carrots are safely in the ground and the cabbage is clearly loving this cold weather. It would be nice if the weeds were to go! All those incredible butterfly attracting flowers are dead, but no doubt they will come back in the spring. I wonder where the butterflies go?

The electric company trimmed back trees last week and left us a huge amount of newly shredded mulch. When it warms up I will down load many wheelbarrows full of it and get the place ready for the spring garden. I have ordered the seeds and have the starter pots ready to place near a warm window. As usual, when all is potential, I have grand fantasies that this year I will have tomatoes in such abundance we will make salsa and juice and ketchup and sauce with enough left over to give away to all our friends. There will be no horn worms, no stink bugs, no blossom end rot. The eggplants will behave and produce only a moderate harvest, not twenty fruits each day. The lettuces will not bolt overnight. The armadillos will not root up the beans.

As my friend Virginia said, "Vegetable gardening is a slow learning curve." After many years you really do get to know what actually grows well in your site. You know that those weird cultivars that look so magnificent in the seed catalog and make you drool just thinking of eating them are probably not going to do well. There is a reason that Farmers Feed store sells pacman broccoli seedlings, never that "new" golden broccoli you see in the seed catalog. So mostly I stick with what is locally available, tried and true. I yearn for the interesting mesclun lettuces and have been pretty successful with growing them in raised salad tables. I keep trying the heirloom tomatoes but I really know that the local Homestead and Big Boy and Early Girl are the ones that can really produce (barring the bugs).

So, even as the frost relentlessly appears each morning, I await my package of seeds and the endless possibilities in those packets. I believe the frost killed plants will rise again in the warmth of spring days. I am not too daunted as I crunch across the frozen fields.