Gosh, you guys make me
,
I am way not an expert in that garden thingy but thanks for the compliments.
I really don't think I could accomplish a book George, I am not even sure I wanted to. Some friends of mine kept pushing me for years to start a Pastry and Cake bakery, or German style Cafe, because I like to bake my own yummies, but to tell the truth, to me baking is fun, because I bake things I never would be able to buy in the US, I started baking out of necessity, because if I wanted to eat the kind of cakes one get's in Germany, you have to make them yourself. Even if a baker attempts to bake European cakes over here, they are mostly poor copies, to rich and way to sweet. If I would do it professionally, it would take all the fun out of it for me, now you are stuck on deadlines, you have to do it even if you don't feel like it.
The same would be for writing a book, with the blog I can write as I come across something, or as I have time or feel like it, no pressure. I can write one blog a month or many. That fits more my personality then having to do it because you have a schedule.
The blog for now is fun, book writing, I don't know, it is not for me. Not that I think, I would be that good of a writer anyway.
You are absolutely right about the non uniform growing conditions over here. Just because you live in Zone 8, does not mean it is the same Zone 8 then in the East Coast. It sure makes gardening challenging and interesting.
Here in Oregon, Zone 8 at the West of the Cascades is completely different then the Zone 8 on the Eastern Site of the Cascades. It is even different from Portland to Eugene. Portland get's a lot of influences from the Columbia River, which acts like a funnel for weather. So Portland get's often more icy freezes and strong winds, more rain then us, but then in the summer they often have some warmer days when the winds come in from the ocean instead of inland.
The Winter rains here leach a lot of Nitrogen out of the soil, so if you just wait long enough you will end up with acidic soil. Soil is often waterlogged in the winter but then in Summer it hardly ever rains, everything get's bone dry, soil cracks. So your plants better tolerate both waterlogged soil and dry conditions. It is even harder to find the right plants if you try to conserve water by watering less.
In North Carolina it seemed many ornamental plants had their high life in Spring up to Mid May, maybe June but then as he humidity came, with the intense heat many just fizzled out, stopped blooming, looked raggedly or disappeared for the season, to come back in fall with a bit more glory. I thought it was to hot and humid for myself, but the plants surely knew it was to hot and humid for them. Trust the plants I say, it is way too humid and hot down there to be comfortable.>lol<
Zone denial, must be a American thing? They don't do that in Europe?
Trust me, I am no expert in that. This year I lost a lot of plants, which in the first years I did not trust to leave out over the winter, but then I saw them in the ground in gardens around here and they looked like they were thriving. So this year I decided, I can leave them outside, no need to fill up my house with all those planters. Guess what, this year we had many freesing nights in a row (normally it just freezes for a few hours a night, just here and there), below the usual average temperature and many of those plants are gone now. But hey, dead plants are to be looked at favorable in some matter, now I can buy more plants >lol<
Luckily things grow faster and larger here then in the East Coast.
So please leave a comment on my blog if you can. So far I had not one visitor leaving comments.
I gotta go plant my potatoes today
till later
Isabell
