Half the time I wake up rocky and slowly calm down but this morning I had the calm down part almost down and then I opened the door - 3 degrees! - and as I stumbled to the car "You can do this. You can do this You can do this." Okay, I'm not going to write a short story but the fact is that in the single digits YOU CANNOT WARM UP. I know, the midwesterners are sneering. I'm just tellingya it's INHUMAN.
ricpic, The secret to staying warm is layers, 2,3,4, and in the -15 we'll have this weekend, maybe 5 layers. I'll still walk 5-8 miles, as long as it's not windy. I understand your incredulity, what bugs me is that folks here who are supposed to be tough are now wimps thanks to news and weather TV.
Optimus H-5511 infrared quartz heater, $25.75 on Amazon. Next best thing to walking with ndspinelli outdoors where that heartless bitch, Mother Nature, is trying to kill us.
I bought my wife 100 tulip bulbs for Christmas. The weather here is so wimpy that the bulbs must be stored at 40-50 degrees F for a couple months before planting to simulate winter.
@BTW, sixty, since moving up here in September, I've listened to nothing but KUSC FM. This was inspired by you, rcommal, and TTBurnett. I now eschew rock n roll which is why I pretty much gave up on KLEM FM posts. Soon I will be trading in my flannel for hair shirts.
Bought 100 tulips in a bag from the grocery store and planted them along a fence.
Then the next spring they all came up in a row evenly spaced like proud tall big yellow soldiers. And I thought, "well, that was rather stupid."
I should have planted them in random patches.
Some were in full sun and others were mixed along with gladiolas and others were underneath Russian olive trees and stayed in shade and others were mixed sun and shade.
The next year they were all smaller and some thinned out and others doubled.
The next year same thing.
The next year same thing and now they appeared to have reorganized themselves into random bunches of varying sizes. And they looked like they were planted by an expert garden designer with advanced tulip-knowledge and a flare for dramatic.
Not gladiolas, rather, those short purple upright flower-piles that are first in spring, hyacinths, I think. Sorry, I got mixed up there. See, they were mixed yellow tulips and purple hyacinths.
Tulipa Triumph-- mixed colors. I'm going to experiment by taking them out of the cold beginning in March and planting some. I want to stagger the bloomage throughout the Spring and Summer. I don't want them to go off all at the same time. Tulips are not perennials in this zone and must be dug up and "rested." I do need to start think about how I want them to look - rows or clumps. I guess I should look at photos.
The soil here is completely different than in Oceanside. There it was very sandy and drainage wasn't an issue. Here it's more clay and if you dig a foot or so down its clay or loam. I've spent a good deal time getting an old disused drainage system functional. It was broken and plugged in places. It works now. The sprinkler system is next. The topsoil could use a lot of compost.
Tulips like bone meal. Take it from someone who has a has a custom welded tulip bulb planter my brother welded up for me; it's the kind you step on and it digs out a 3.5" core about 5-6 inches down. The core comes out the top of the planter on the next hole and is used to cover the previous hole with the bulb in it. If you lived closer, chickelit, I'd loan it to you! Many have borrowed it over the years and it's planted a lot of tulips, but has sat useless in the garage for the last several as the deer consumed my last batch of 140 as if they were candy and I gave up planting them at this house, though I had a garden full at our first home. My favorite way to plant them is to gently toss them (or let them roll out of your hand) on the ground in sort of a cluster, but random, and then bury them where they fall. That way allows for groups of color without lines and stiffness. I love tulip bouquets and when I had a fenced yard, I had some glorious ones. I especially liked the Black Parrots. They were late bloomers that came up year after year around the same time the lilacs opened.
We live an hour from Holland MI, where the Tulip Festival is held every year: https://www.tuliptime.com/ Believe it or not, it's a huge draw.
I moved from Columbus to Chicago on Christmas Eve 1984. The temperature was zero or below with near blizzard conditions. I was driving my brand new VW diesel and no one ever advised me to put a can of Heet in with a fillup to prevent the fuel from gelling. Indiana had a nasty habit of not plowing their roads and shutting down north south access on interstate 65. My car stalled out and I spent a miserable Christmas Eve in a gas station waiting till morning for a tow and service. This experience is why I would like to to take an axe to anyone espousing global warming.
18 comments:
OMG, that's something Troop should have posted.
Complete with the Carson clip whence it came.
Half the time I wake up rocky and slowly calm down but this morning I had the calm down part almost down and then I opened the door - 3 degrees! - and as I stumbled to the car "You can do this. You can do this You can do this." Okay, I'm not going to write a short story but the fact is that in the single digits YOU CANNOT WARM UP. I know, the midwesterners are sneering. I'm just tellingya it's INHUMAN.
I am in Minnesota, it's winter, so it's fucking cold.
ricpic, The secret to staying warm is layers, 2,3,4, and in the -15 we'll have this weekend, maybe 5 layers. I'll still walk 5-8 miles, as long as it's not windy. I understand your incredulity, what bugs me is that folks here who are supposed to be tough are now wimps thanks to news and weather TV.
tv.
Electric blanket. Git one.
Optimus H-5511 infrared quartz heater, $25.75 on Amazon. Next best thing to walking with ndspinelli outdoors where that heartless bitch, Mother Nature, is trying to kill us.
Mid 70's in western Orange County. I have a wonderful crop of lemons.
It does get down into the 40s at night. It's so cold I had to shut my windows at night.
I bought my wife 100 tulip bulbs for Christmas. The weather here is so wimpy that the bulbs must be stored at 40-50 degrees F for a couple months before planting to simulate winter.
@BTW, sixty, since moving up here in September, I've listened to nothing but KUSC FM. This was inspired by you, rcommal, and TTBurnett. I now eschew rock n roll which is why I pretty much gave up on KLEM FM posts. Soon I will be trading in my flannel for hair shirts.
What kind of tulips?
I did that once.
Bought 100 tulips in a bag from the grocery store and planted them along a fence.
Then the next spring they all came up in a row evenly spaced like proud tall big yellow soldiers. And I thought, "well, that was rather stupid."
I should have planted them in random patches.
Some were in full sun and others were mixed along with gladiolas and others were underneath Russian olive trees and stayed in shade and others were mixed sun and shade.
The next year they were all smaller and some thinned out and others doubled.
The next year same thing.
The next year same thing and now they appeared to have reorganized themselves into random bunches of varying sizes. And they looked like they were planted by an expert garden designer with advanced tulip-knowledge and a flare for dramatic.
But it was all rather stupid.
And I'll bet you $10.00 they're still growing.
Not gladiolas, rather, those short purple upright flower-piles that are first in spring, hyacinths, I think. Sorry, I got mixed up there. See, they were mixed yellow tulips and purple hyacinths.
Tulipa Triumph-- mixed colors. I'm going to experiment by taking them out of the cold beginning in March and planting some. I want to stagger the bloomage throughout the Spring and Summer. I don't want them to go off all at the same time. Tulips are not perennials in this zone and must be dug up and "rested." I do need to start think about how I want them to look - rows or clumps. I guess I should look at photos.
The garden zone varies from full sun to partial to no sun right up against the north face of the house.
The soil here is completely different than in Oceanside. There it was very sandy and drainage wasn't an issue. Here it's more clay and if you dig a foot or so down its clay or loam. I've spent a good deal time getting an old disused drainage system functional. It was broken and plugged in places. It works now. The sprinkler system is next. The topsoil could use a lot of compost.
Tulips like bone meal. Take it from someone who has a has a custom welded tulip bulb planter my brother welded up for me; it's the kind you step on and it digs out a 3.5" core about 5-6 inches down. The core comes out the top of the planter on the next hole and is used to cover the previous hole with the bulb in it. If you lived closer, chickelit, I'd loan it to you! Many have borrowed it over the years and it's planted a lot of tulips, but has sat useless in the garage for the last several as the deer consumed my last batch of 140 as if they were candy and I gave up planting them at this house, though I had a garden full at our first home. My favorite way to plant them is to gently toss them (or let them roll out of your hand) on the ground in sort of a cluster, but random, and then bury them where they fall. That way allows for groups of color without lines and stiffness. I love tulip bouquets and when I had a fenced yard, I had some glorious ones. I especially liked the Black Parrots. They were late bloomers that came up year after year around the same time the lilacs opened.
We live an hour from Holland MI, where the Tulip Festival is held every year: https://www.tuliptime.com/ Believe it or not, it's a huge draw.
I moved from Columbus to Chicago on Christmas Eve 1984. The temperature was zero or below with near blizzard conditions. I was driving my brand new VW diesel and no one ever advised me to put a can of Heet in with a fillup to prevent the fuel from gelling. Indiana had a nasty habit of not plowing their roads and shutting down north south access on interstate 65. My car stalled out and I spent a miserable Christmas Eve in a gas station waiting till morning for a tow and service. This experience is why I would like to to take an axe to anyone espousing global warming.
If I was to bring a tulip outside right now, it would scream for a very short time, then shatter into a million pieces.
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