Your outdoor plants are doing well under the frost attack.
RIP Kimba. The memorial is a sweet touch.
Thanks Twelve!
Mornings are always the toughest because he was always waiting for me patiently at my bedroom for me to emerge to take him on our rounds, and now opening that door and seeing the empty spot where he would be waiting every morning breaks my heart. So now I go out to the memorial and talk to him for a few minutes before I start my day. It does help a little.
The weather has improved the last few days. Not as cold at night, and the days have been warming into the mid 70s. This warming trend that is forecast to last well through the week is giving me the opportunity to let all the outdoor plants keep going until they are ready.
The Miracle Plant
I wanted to convey something special that just happened today... A few days before we lost Kimba, the remains of GDP #2 after the harvest back August showed all signs of being dead, with a not a single sign of activity so I had taken it outside in the unlit work shed next to the compost heap and had planned to cut what's left of it down today and discard it, but to my surprised this morning, when I went down to get it, sheers in hand I discovered several new shoots of healthy new growth about 6 inches long emerging from the base of the stalk. It started doing this in the dark of the tool shed, in near freezing over night temps and with no light and no water for nearly a week.
It was a very touching sign of new growth and a will to live, so I am going to trim off all the dead growth and bring her back inside under the warmth and comfort of the lights. This plant now symbolizes to me the death and rebirth of life, so I didn't have the heart carry through the previous plan to cut it down to the nub and yank it out of the pot by the roots and end its life for good.
Instead, I am going to trim her up and bring her back under the veg lights to begin a new chapter in her journey through life. I'm going to rename her "The Miracle Plant". A symbol of the never ending cycle of life, from death and despair to eventual rebirth and renewal of the coming Spring. A perfect living legacy to Kimba's memory! What made it more special was that while I was taking the harvest shots of this plant back then in late August, Kimba kept jumping up on the Jazuzzi Spa cover running into the shots and nosing the plant. I finally had to put him in the house so I could take the photos without him in "getting in the way". It was just Kimba trying to "help", but I wanted clean shots of the plant by itself. He stood in there, looking at me through the window like he didn't understand what he had done wrong.
You can imagine how much I regret now not just letting him be in those shots like he always wanted to be.
I am never one to ignore special moments like this when they are thrust upon us without warning or fanfare. So Kimba's Miracle Plant will receive the best care I can offer such a special plant who overcame adversity to give me a sign of how much she wanted to live and still wanted to give next spring. Being that this happened on the second anniversary week of Kimba's passing, makes it a very special plant for us now, and in a way, continues our living tribute to his memory and his profound and very positive impact on all of our lives here.
I'll talk some photos of this "miracle plant' later.
I doubt the nursery up here would have anything like that, but I will definitely check there too!
