Bringing Plants Inside For Winter

It was time to bring the tender plants back into the house.  They have been waiting patiently in the low level lighting of the garage for two weeks.  When the morning temperatures warmed up, I pulled them all out on to the driveway.  One by one I gave them a good cutting back, if it hadn't been done two weeks ago.  Each pot was then set in my large, deep tub and submersed for around 10 minutes up to the top of their pots.  I hope to accomplish two things by doing this.  One, it helps to bring any soil dwelling insects to the surface where they can be flushed away with additional water.  Two, if any small rodents have burrowed into the soil for nesting, they will also come to the surface.  No rodents today.  I let them drain and sprayed them down to knock additional bugs or eggs off of the leaves.  I let them sit while my husband and I tackled a long awaited task.

A friend had many paving bricks in his yard that he no longer wanted.  We have an area of the yard which is next to our "pond" that we want to lay a patio.  About half of the bricks were stacked in his yard.  The other half were in a patio setup that had to be lifted.  We are not young people any more.  The repetitive task of lifting and moving so many blocks was not as easy as it used to be.  Surprisingly, it took maybe two hours to lift, load, move, and unload the whole bunch.  Not bad for a couple of "old farts". 

After moving all the block, I was not looking forward to the job of moving in the very wet pots.  I enlisted the use of our new (albeit second-hand) hand cart.  It was less strenuous moving the taller, heavy plants with this method.  Last year, Dan, my daughter's fiance, helped me carry them in.  It was even challenging for him.  I am thankful for the hand cart.  Now all my tender babies are in the house, safe and sound from the cold.