I guess you could say I like blueberries!

Good morning all!  The sun is shining today and I'll take it even though the temps are veeeery chilly.  I have to chuckle because of the fact that not only did the ground hogs get it wrong, but so did the meterologist when it came to weather in the U.S these past couple of months.  If you will remember, the ground hog up north (don't ask me to spell his first name), Phil, said the north would have an early spring.  Then down here in Ga, our own ground hog, General Lee (see we do things so much simpler down here.) told us we would have 6 more weeks of winter.  So January and February gave the north some record breaking ice and snow, and gave us more of a spring like feel (along with massive amounts of rain).  I think that was a bit of a disappointment for both yankee and southerner alike.  Up north wanted to see warmer temps, and we down south always want to see snow!  We love the beauty, and, let's face it, we love the DRAMA; will it snow, will school be out, will we lose power, we need bread and milk (I have no idea why that is), etc.

Lest you think we only rely on Rodents with rank, the "Powers that be " weather folks concurred!  So here we are down south eagerly anticipating a "greater chance of snow and colder temps".  February was supposed to be The Month.  Instead, we were warmer and wetter.  I guess they got the wetter part right, but no fun stuff.  Just rain, and more rain, and more rain.

Due to the warmer and wetter weather, my blueberries (and peach tree, but nothing to do about that) bloomed out.  I mean bloomed out!  They are loaded with blooms, and I do mean loaded.

And now we are due, after many weeks of above freezing temps, for the bottom to drop out tonight.  Our low for tonight is forcasted to be 23 degrees.  Not the coldest it's been here in Ga, but cold enough to kill all blooms everywhere that temp can be found.  Anything below 29 degrees causes damage, and the lower the temp the more damage.  At 23 degrees I could lose all of my blueberries.

There isn't anything I can do about my fully blooming peach tree.  It's a loss again this year (grrrr), but I can try to save my blueberries.  Enter copious amounts of heavy white plastic, tomato cages, fencing, clothes pins, tape, twine, and anything else I could lay my hands on the save these berries.  My berries are planted against my house and get full sun.  I have tomato cages made from field fencing, as well as some field fencing.  I used those to make a framework around the blueberries.  Anywhere the plastic touches the blooms, will freeze.  The cages will help hold the plastic away from the actual bushes.

A peek under you can see what I'm talking about with the blooms.  Some haven't opened quite yet, and some are fully open

As I'm wrapping these buggers up, the wind is breezy at 14 mph.  So as you would expect, just about the time I would get something in place, the wind would move it....a lot.  Then I would finally get it together and the wind would open a place.  Usually in the most inconvenient place.  As I'm working I'm saying to myself "it's a good thing I like blueberries".  This mantra then became "not so sure I really like blueberries".  But now that I have it taken care of, I think I do still like blueberries.  I'm caustiously optimistic that I have them secure and we may be able to ride this out thru the next 2 days.

The flip side of this coin is that these cold days will help set my blackberries, so there is a silver lining.

The weather prognosticators are saying this is winters last hurrah.  Yea.  I'll believe it when I see it.
As an aside, I'll worry more about what the powers that be in weather say will happen with "Climate change" in 10 years, when they can accuately predict a 5 day forcast.  Just sayin.

Also along the gardening front; tomatoe, pepper and squash seeds have all been started.  Now we wait.

So hows your weather?  Have you started any seeds?