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Credit: jppi at morguefile.com

People tend to think it's the cold that kills plants in the winter, but that simply isn't so. Winter kill can easily be avoided by taking the proper steps to protect and care for your garden during the winter months.

Plants do not "freeze to death". Most plants die in the winter from dehydration stress. While plants need less moisture in the winter, they still need gallons of water. Snow isn't water until it melts. Couple this with harsh, cold, drying winds, and you have a recipe for disaster in your garden. Just as your skin dries out in the winter, so do your plants.

New plants are especially susceptible to winter kill. Trees under 5 years old and shrubs and perennials under two years old are considered "new". The roots of new plants are closer to the surface, in the hard freeze zone. Older plants with deeper roots find sources of moisture underground that new plants cannot.

Later fall and early winter watering is the best way to save your plants from winter kill. Heavy mulching also helps retain soil moisture and can keep roots safe from dehydration. Mulch also helps the water from the spring thaw penetrate into the ground, instead of running off.

To protect the tops of your plants during the winter, you can wrap trunks and limbs in burlap or other material to avoid dehydration from drying winter winds. There are also anti-dessicant sprays that can be used on evergreens, but they are expensive, and eventually wash off. In nature, falling leaves and needles protect the forest floors from frost. Don't ever hesitate to do the same in your garden. Using wire or other material to build a fence around your more tender plants, and filling with leaves or pine straw until they are completely covered, is an excellent winter protection. In very harsh winter climates, it is sometimes wise to build a winter shelter around and over your plants, or store them in a cold frame until spring.

In warmer southern states, building a simple shelter from poles and clear plastic sheeting can provide an effective protection against the occasional hard freeze. Always be sure to remove or open the plastic enclosure as soon as the sun comes out, to prevent burning. In warmer climes, simply covering your plants with blankets or sheets, to prevent frost from settling on and burning the foliage, can be sufficient. Professional growers regularly keep sprinklers running during a freeze to form a layer of insulating ice on crops, such as strawberries and citrus.

Lighter, friable soil rich in organic material holds moisture very well. Adding compost to the soil is a good way to not only aid moisture retention, but air retention as well, which is nearly as important.

Piling up snow around plants is a good way to insulate them and keep them safe from winter winds. While you are shoveling your walks and driveways, toss that snow over onto your plants. If this snow melts slowly in the spring, it will provide a deep watering.

Dig up tender bulbs, wrap in newspaper, and store in a cool place until spring. Dig up tender perennials and tropicals and put into pots, and bring indoors if possible.

The time and effort it takes to winterize your garden is well worth it. Taking these simple precautions will keep your garden safe and healthy during the harsh winter months, so that it can burst forth in spring and provide you with hours of joy.

Who is running the trademark office these days? First, we hear that Facebook is trying to trademark the word "book", now it's the terms "urban homestead" and "urban homesteading", which they have evidently allowed to be trademarked by the Dervaes family. You'll have to look them up for yourself, because I will not dignify them with a link to their site.

Have these people been sniffing manure, or maybe some of that homemade diesel they have in their garage? Maybe the fumes are seeping into their house, killing their brain cells in their sleep. Whatever...they are getting way too big for their britches, as we like to say in the south.

Now they are going after one of my favorite blogs, Root Simple (formerly Homegrown Evolution). You can read all about it in this blog post. You see, the owners of the original website also wrote a book in 2008 named "The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City". I suggest that you rush over to Amazon and buy the book to help contribute to their legal fees.

You know, the world is getting to be an absolutely insane place, when people like the Dervaes can lay claim to everyday words and use that power to pick on little people. To demand that people pay you to use a phrase that has been around since at least the 1970's is such total bullshit it stinks even from way over here in Florida. If you'd like to let them know what you think, you can write to them at info@pathtofreedom.com, write them at @urbanhomestead  on Twitter (yes, they claimed the name there too). Looks like they took their Facebook page down. Probably couldn't handle the truth. The strangest thing about these people is that they evidently own the domain urbanhomesteading.com, but don't use it. How weird is that? Or maybe they don't own it, but are not going to allow the owner to ever use it now that they've trademarked that term, so he will have no choice but to give it to them.

Who really cares about some crazy people in California who own 1/5th of an acre of land and act like they own the world?  I guess the hoopla about them died down, so they had to find a way to get some attention. Let me just tell you one thing, Dervaes...gardeners are NOT the people you want to go up against. We have sharp tools, and sharper minds, and we like to bury things. We will bury your website, have no doubt. You will no longer be famous, you will just be another infamous blip on the internet history of assholes who think they are more than they actually are.

Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame. It won't last long.

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I know we live in Florida, and if you want to see feet in FL, all you have to do is look down. I'm going to tell you a story that isn't pleasant, but it's a warning I have to issue.

I am infected with Strongyloides stercoralis, commonly known at threadworm. Usually, this infection is easy to knock out with drugs, but there is a chance in immuno-compromised people and those on steroids that it will become a hyperinfection and become incurable. 87% of hyperinfected people die....yes DIE.


I have these worms in my eyes and my sinuses, my lungs, my digestive tract and maybe in my brain. I don't know, because I don't have insurance to get the tests I need. Without the tests, the doctor will not prescribe the medicine I need. 70% of the time, the tests come back negative anyway, so I'm not going to waste my time taking them.

So how do I know I have threadworms? It started when my right eye started twitching and watering, and I could swear I felt something crawling around in it. I started Googling, and came up with parasitic infection of some sort, so I started looking for an herbal parasite cleanser.  I found Humaworm, and took it for a month, during which time the eye got better. Unfortunately, this started another round of symptoms as soon as I stopped. The eye problems came back and worms started coming out of my nose. I don't mean literally crawling out of my nose, but as they die, they try to exit your body, so I would feel something in my nose, dig around with a q-tip, and literally pull 1" to 2" worms out.

The more I read, the more frightened I got. I started looking for ways to treat these creatures inbetween the doses of Humaworm (there is a 90-day wait between treatments).  I am now using coconut oil, iodine, and cayenne pepper. I actually have to use coconut oil drops in my eyes at night, and an eye wash with cayenne in it three times a day just to control the crawling sensations and watering. Then I have to take more coconut oil during the day, along with the iodine, to treat the ones in my stomach and digestive tract. I also have to drink quarts of clove tea to try and kill the eggs before they hatch and make even more worms.  You can read all about these worms and my attempt to rid myself of them on Deb's Health and Fitness.

So how did I get these worms? By not wearing closed shoes outside. These worms are in our soil, and they get into your body through your feet. I never wore shoes outside unless we had an unusual cold day. I lived in flip-flops and sandals, mostly flip-flops. I would come inside with my feet filthy, and I may not wash them for half a day or more. I went barefoot in the house, probably spreading the eggs all over my house, reinfecting myself over and over. I petted my cat and kissed her, and did not wash my hands between petting her and eating. Actually, I did not wash my hands near enough during the day. Who washes their hands every time they eat some snack food?  I do now.

I don't garden barefoot anymore. I wear shoes and socks, long pants, and tuck my pants legs into my socks. I use gloves, and even when I don't, I wash my hands before touching anything in my house. I have to wash my sheets twice a week in hot water.

At this point, this house is infected, my cat is infected, and I'm glad to be moving out of here so that I can be in a non-infected environment. At present, I don't put my feet on the floor unless they are covered with socks. I'm paranoid that the eggs can somehow get through the socks and onto my feet, so I wear slide sandals around the  house as well.

This is a horrible parasite to have, and it is dangerous simply for the fact that it auto-infects, which means it reproduces inside the body. Pinworms have to leave your body to lay eggs, threadworms don't. Pinworms stay in your intestinal tract, but threadworms bore through your intestinal wall and get into your blood stream, or simply crawl around under your skin until they get somewhere friendly, where they set up camp and wreak havoc.

So I'm begging you, wear shoes and socks outside when you garden, and if you have any of the symptoms of pinworm or threadworm infection, see your doctor. The Humaworm cleanse can take care of pinworm infections, and it helps kill the adults and eggs in the intestines, but it can't cure threadworms completely. Read more on my health blog about my ongoing struggle to kill these worms, and the final outcome.

Resources:
Strongyloides on Wikipedia
Deb's Health and Fitness Blog
Humaworm
Parasites Support Forum on Curezone

So I haven't been posting much, because it's so hot here, I haven't really been gardening much.  It's all I can do, with the heat sensitivity of the lupus, to even keep up with mowing and weed whacking.  I took a few pictures the other day of what is blooming, or was when I took them, so here they are.  Enjoy!

 A Blackberry Lily volunteered itself behind the Jatropha tree last year. I have no idea where it came from, some seed probably washed in on a storm.  It bloomed this year for the first time.

Angel Wing cane begonia and Religious Radish Coleus.  These two plants seem to live in spite of me.  I've killed so many coleus and begonias, but these just go on and on.


Aechmea bromeliad.  I don't know the exact variety, because there are a lot that look just like this one. I usually get more blooms, but the freeze hit this one, and it just didn't bloom this year like usual.


I bought this crape myrtle at a small garden center outside of Ocala on my way back from SC once.  It's "Dallas Red", which I thought was a true red, but really isn't.  I like it, though. It's a deep red-pink that is pretty, but I still want a true red one.


"Dancing Ladies" globba gingers.  I love these. They are so delicate and beautiful. I wish I had the pink. If anyone has one, I'll be glad to trade "bulblets" with you.


My firebush died down to the ground in the freeze, but is about 3 feet tall now and blooming. I have another that I want to plant alongside this one to make a hedge. If I plant them far enough apart, they'll actually get large enough to fill in the space.  These bushes are amazing with how fast they grow.


Gloriosa lily. This picture doesn't really show the bright colors. I'll try to get a better one later.


Jatropha shrub that I can't seem to get rid of. I had truly hoped that it was dead this year after the freeze, but it came back up, and is really pretty. Unfortunately, it's in a very bad place, and will start leaning toward the sun as it gets larger. Do you know how huge the root ball is on these plants?  I tried to dig it up. No way.

Native spider lilies.  These are really large plants. This one was rescued from the house next door after its owner died, and the new resident was just letting the yard go to hell. 


This is some unknown variety of Euphorbia Milii, Crown of Thorns.  The stems are square, and twist as they grow, which makes it very interesting.

 
 Yellow Thai Crown of Thorns, which is doing very well after some freeze damage caused me to have to prune it back severely.  I had thought I would have to start it over from cuttings, but it came back out with a vengeance.

Weeds are taking over, as they do every summer, but this last little late blooming double orange ditch lily was determined to bloom despite the weeds choking it out.


Speaking of weeds, this is what happens to your African Iris if you don't weed around it regularly.  This is for anyone who thinks I must have a beautiful yard. Actually, my yard is ugly.  It's the plants that are pretty.
 

 I've had this aloe since I was 25 years old., at least the top of it.  It gets too tall, I lop the top off and replant it. My mother gave it to me as a birthday gift.

The geranium is called a "tree geranium".  It's one of the tall growing species of geraniums, and this is the only one I've been able to keep alive for very long.  It gets up to 4 feet tall, and hopefully, I will get this one that size this year.

 A Versicolor Peach Brugmansia I thought was dead from the cold, coming back up in a pot full of blooming purple oxalis.  I love this oxalis, but the purple is coming up all over my yard.  Little spots of purple everywhere.  Can't see it well in this pic, but the blooms are a pale pink, very pretty contrast.
 Tutti Frutti plumeria.  I lopped this off of the one that was planted outside this winter so it wouldn't freeze.  Just stuck it into this pot, and it seems to be happy.

I love these caladiums.  There are also celosia and a Alabama Sunset Coleus in there, but you can't see them from this angle.  I may have to move the caladiums, because they are already showing a little sun stress.
 My new "rescued" Calibroachoa (Million Bells).  This was an almost dead plant I got from Wal-Mart for half price.  I don't know why I buy these things, but I do, and it seems happy now. It will have its own home soon.
 Pot of celosia.  The pink and yellow don't seem to be doing as well as the red.  May take them out and put them into their own pot.

 Cucumbers blooming. These are from the seeds I'd had in my freezer since 1991...seriously.  I did not even think they would come up.
Double Purple Datura growing in a pot of Ruellia Squarosa.  This Ruellia is so pretty as a ground cover, and nearly bullet proof.  It's called Water Bluebell, because it will grow in standing water.  It also withstands drought, or it wouldn't have survived my yard, believe me.
Elderberry in bloom.  Had my neighbor saw this thing down to the ground last year.  The original trunk was about 2 feet around. This came up from around the trunk. I tried to grow this as a tree, but it's much prettier and easier to care for as a bush.
Mimosa Strigillosa, finally taking over my side yard.  This was so strange. It grew from my yard over into my neighbor's yard (towards the sun), then back into my yard.  It's moving into the front lawn too now, which is fine with me.  I'd transplant some, but somehow, I've had no luck with that.  People say it's easy to root, but I haven't been able to get any to live in pots.O


A somewhat wilted Pereskia Grandifolia.  I have another one that is just coming into bloom, so I'll have better flower pics later.  This thing has some baaaaad thorns on it.
There are so many fruits on this Surinam Cherry, they are falling all over the ground.  I eat as many as I can, but nobody else I know likes them, so they just fall off.

I'll have part 2 of WBITG in May soon, but I don't have time right now to resize all the remaining pics.  I think I took 63 this morning.