Signs of Spring..It has arrived in Florida!

Hello everyone from Ten Gables Cottage,

It may be cold where you are, but Florida is beautiful today with sunny clear skies and the temp. is in the upper 70's. In fact, I just got off the mower! I mowed over a few high spots of grass and a lot of weeds! The weeds always appear first in the Spring and how can you possibly weed 5 and 1/2 acres? So I mowed over the weeds today! At least, it looks nice now , without great tall clumps of milk week here and there.
Here is a photo of my tomato plant taken looking down into the cage. It has one little yellow bloom right in the center.











This beautiful coral colored rose has 4 nice blooms on it. I need to cut off the dead bits here and there. In Florida, the roses actually bloom year around and you don't have to cut them clear down, but you can cut back some and get rid of dead bits.
















I think flowers are called periwinkle, although I am not sure. Anyway, I bought two or three plants a couple of years ago and they have seeded everywhere. I pull them up all over the place. They are a nuisance, because you cannot contain them in any area.
They are sort of pretty, but they grow everywhere, sidewalk cracks, on top of your vegetables, out in the yard---they drive me crazy and I pull them up all the time!




Here is my final bit of Spring. Another turtle laying eggs in the front yard close to the big Oak tree. She covered them and went back to the canal. This was Wednesday. This morning, I noticed something had dug up the nest and ate out the eggs, leaving the soft shells. It appeared to be an armadillo hole. I haven't seen an armadillo lately, but a find their holes where they look for grubs and stuff to eat.



Notice the weeds in front of the turtle. These I mowed down. I used to work so hard getting rid of them, pulling them up, until one Spring I said "No More". I just let them be and in about a month, the lawn was in and green and the weeds had died and were gone! So now all I do is mow them down and by the time they grow up a bit the grass begins to come in thicker and chokes them out.

I hope where you live you are seeing signs of Spring!