My garden is only growing ice.

Rain water frozen in my weeding bucket.

Brr. Big Brrrrr. It's an understatement. Will someone turn the heat back on in California? I spent the weekend at Mom's (which wasn't any warmer!). Although it was a 3 day weekend, I had no real motivation to get out into the garden, it's just been too darn cold. Just to prove it, here's a picture of some of the growing ice that was in my weed bucket. That was Saturday. I was stunned to see ice had formed in so many places in the yard. We haven't ever seen this sort of weather, even last March when we had that weird ice storm that dumped snow in Santa Cruz through Rio del Mar.

You know it's cold when the Oxalis has frost damage. Too bad it doesn't kill the blasted stuff. But I'm pleased that last summer's work of mulching around the greenhouse and beds 1 and 2 has kept the weeds down. Except for the occasional rogue Oxalis, there's been nothing poking through the four pages of newspaper & 3 inches of bark on top. I'm noticing a need to add more bark here and there, but yippee, no weeds to pull so far. I hope the trend continues when the soil warms up.

Saturday I barely went out to look and see what was frost damaged. I forgot about a dendrobium in the green house and it looks terrible. What a shame. But I see no reason why it shouldn't recover. Stupid of me to forget it in there. I plucked some ripened parsley seed heads. I really want more of those plants here and there as the beneficial insects love them. Even now (when it's a tad warmer, however) they buzz all over the blossoms. The rhubarb that was looking full and perky last week is drooped over the sides of the pot now. I was wondering when it was planning on becoming dormant.

Once I got to Mom's on Sunday, there was similar damage here and there, but most things are looking okay for her. I do worry about the kaffir lily which was looking a bit sad. But I wasn't even sure it would survive in Lincoln. Time will tell. I found time to prune the cherry tree, the espalier pear and espalier apple. I still have the peach, apricots and second apple tree to prune. And I really need to treat the peach with horticultural oil. Well, I'll be back in a couple of weeks. I'll try to finish then.