Daffodils Are A 'No Show' - February Gardening in the Mountains of Murphy, North Carolina

Last year in mid-February here in Murphy, North Carolina I wrote a blog about seeing my first daffodil of the season. Today, the headline on my Yahoo home page says that 49 of our 50 states have show on the ground somewhere. Let's face it, they could hold the Winter Olympics in Washington, DC this year if snow was the only requirement!

When I went back and read about last winter, I was amazed to find that I spoke of it being unusually harsh. That seems like an understatement now. Snow on Friday afternoon sent the kids home from school early and sent everyone else in town to the grocery store where I think they were all ahead of me in line! Now we have snow in the forecast for tonight as well.

Although I hail from Michigan, where summer is defined as "two bad days of ice fishing" I've learned a healthy respect for the snowfall we get here in the mountains, light as it may be by comparison to what I've seen up North. We didn't have the twisting narrow mountain roads there. Once the sun comes out, the snow may melt quickly, but if there's enough water on the road when the temperature starts to drop, you can come around a curve and find yourself on a patch of ice by the time you're heading home from work.

Needless to say, there's not much going on in my garden in February this year. But I'm lifting weights at the gym, getting ready to tote those 40 pound bags of manure out to the new border we opened up at the foot of the hill - just as soon as the daffodils bloom again!