Packing the Greenhouse

Winter approaches, and once again everything must come inside or get left behind. This year, we say goodbye to Plumeria pudica. The plant makes very fragrant white flowers, but it refuses to solidly root in the pot and as a result it constantly tips over and grow awkwardly. We made some interesting plumeria wine from its flowers but said wine ruined us on Traminette. So long, P. pudica.

We also bid adieu to Psidium myrtoides, purple guava. I grew two trees from seeds brought from Puerto Rico. I managed with great difficulty to prune and stake these into a tree-like form, and they got to around 5 feet. But theses trees also refused to firmly root in the pot and required constant staking. Worse, the marble-sized fruit were not worthy of wine or anything else. The smell reminded me of something between motor oil and skunk, and they taste was bitter. 

Some of the plants in the south window did not handle the transition well. The loquat and one of the sapodillas will lose some leaves. I walked in Thursday morning to find one contributing cause - no heat. It was 46F inside. I didn't have time to troubleshoot until Saturday, and finally found the culprits.

A replacement thermocouple

What you can find on Amazon for $9 is $36 at the local hardware store. I coughed up the money for the only one in stock, and I had the north furnace going in about 10 minutes. The second one is coming from Amazon in a week, we'll get by until then with one furnace.

There were a couple of nice fruit this week. We brought home the largest guava to date, this one nearly baseball sized. Noel's Big Red sugar apple was sweet and tasty, even if small and seedy.

A tour:

Deep Freeze of 2017-2018

The holidays are winding down. Most of the family has returned home, only Jake and Allie remain for another couple of days. We had a White Christmas, and one of my recurring nightmares became a reality on Christmas Eve Day.

Kingston, Adam, and I ran him back down the driveway and up the road without anyone getting injured. The deer on the other hand...

The greenhouse is a challenge. We haven't gotten much precipitation and the rain barrels are about empty. The deep well has frozen, and so now we have little water remaining in the greenhouse. I squeezed out enough today, and hoping for enough rain/snow that the rain barrels get recharged soon.

The other challenge in the greenhouse is temperature. We left the south side uncovered this year, and as luck would have it we're seeing some of the coldest temps of the past few years. Last night we hit -9F and it took both propane heaters plus three electric ones to keep the temps up.

We're through the worst of the cold, but the forecast doesn't show a day above freezing in the next 5, and no precipitation until Saturday.