Helen, the lettuce sounds wonderful. I let my flat of lettuce perish to a heavy freeze because I forgot to bring it back in!

I have pears, plums and peaches in bloom...that 30ð predicted for tomorrow night scares me. I may loose most of the fruit. I just hope the cold doesn't hang around long.

Glenda, my lone peach tree is just barely blooming. Had such a great crop last year after being pruned severely.

Somehow I have the idea that unless fruit is set there's not too much of a problem. My dad used to have an orchard here and often stated in the Spring that anyone trying to grow peaches in SW Missouri was probably out of their mind. Some years I do agree.

Lettuce sounds good, Helen. Mine are still in their little six packs in a cold frame.
Sunny

I've been eating salad a lot lately too (trying to drop some pounds) but have to buy mine. It's convenient to get the stuff already cut up and washed that's ready to eat but too expensive. I've been buying head romaine and that "artisan lettuce" that comes in the square plastic container at Walmart. It's still in the head too so it keeps longer and it's surprising how much is in there. I really should get my act together and grow my own. Still needing those raised beds I keep hinting for.
Hope tomorrow night's low doesn't steal your fruit Glenda. Do you try to cover any of them?
I finally gave up on trying to find a good spot in my yard for my new apricot tree and planted it in a feed tub so I can move it under the balcony if we get a late freeze. Home Depot has some heavy duty plant dolly's on their website or I might just get my hubby to help me heft it up onto his car mechanic dolly thing that slides under a car if I need to move it around. I couldn't leave that outside year 'round though.

Sunny - You may be right about fruit that's already set on being more susceptible to frost. I think the more the blooms are open, the easier they're damaged too. I don't want to know what your dad would say about someone trying to grow APRICOTS in the Ozarks. lol I certainly wouldn't try to grow those or peaches to make a living. It would have to be someone who hasn't lived in the Ozarks very long that would try that.

I started my lettuce in the house. Then I put it outside in a box (cold frame) that I made. Every time it is cold I have covered it up so I have lettuce big enough to eat just now. After I cut some of it, it looks kind of beaten up. The very next day it is like I never used any. The remaining plants spread out and fill in the space.

I used to enjoy hearing stories my father-in-law told about life in the Ozarks. My family is not from here. He said before brush hogs, hill land was not usually cleared or considered very valuable. Some people would clear a couple acres plant peach trees and strawberries together. The forest soil was not full of weed and grass seeds, so it was easier to keep the strawberries cultivated and weed free. The peaches would grow up and produce more fruit because of the slope protection from frost. After a few years I think they abandoned that spot for another. I didn't get all the particulars.

What I really thought was interesting was the way they raised hogs. The mothers ran free in the hills eating acorns. They would make a nest of a big pile of sticks and brush. When they emerged with the babies, the farmer would catch and pen the young pigs and feed them corn raised in the valley land. The boars were not eaten but sometimes given to the people who lived in the hills on squirrels and money from cutting rail road ties.

I think it is amazing that people lived here and supported themselves on the land with no electricity or refrigeration.

"I think it is amazing that people lived here and supported themselves on the land with no electricity or refrigeration."
Me too Helen. There must've been some very adventurous or desperate people to have settled where they did. I was thinking that when we visited Eureka springs last time. It's challenging enough to get around that area even with paved roads. I don't know how they managed to do it many years ago.

I can tell you how they did it in those hills. My granddad lived in the Nixa area. They went back and forth with a horse or mule and a wagon! They also didn't have power until after Grandpa died. They gad an icebox on the porch; they cooled some things sunk down in a bucket in the well. They used kerosene lamps and Aladdin lamps. They heated with a King heater and cooked on a Kerosene range.

My other grandmother raised hogs and she let them run in the woods and make nests to have their babies.

The Nixa relatives lived on pork they raised and garden produce. They also had apple, peach and plum trees and each year they always harvest walnuts for their own use. Grandma kept chickens; raised her own and she would run out catch up a chicken, wring its neck and cook it for Sunday dinner. I still remember it as the most delicious chicken I have ever tasted. Beef was a rare commodity. Mom told me once in a while someone in the area would butch a beef and he toted it around in a wagon and folks would just buy some to cook that day (no refrigertion). All grandma knew to do with it was boil it.

OK. enough down memory lane. I could go on for hours.

Helen, in the NIxa area they had a canning factory and the farmers would grow old fashioned tomatoes like Stone on hillsides, one year only and then they would move to another hill. No disease passed on. They didn't stake them either.

BTW, we got a nice 1.25 inch rain and I hear we are ahead this year by 2 inches!

All the weather guys reported my area as getting half to one inch. There were flood warnings out for my county which they put out anytime it rains. Since my rain gauge is turned over, I don't know what I got but I think two inches judging by buckets. There is cold forecast again and it is causing me trouble but I am so glad the weather has changed from our global warming spell.

So glad I don't have to run out to the back yard and catch my dinner.
Did it get cold enough to damage anything? How do the blooms look on your fruit trees Glenda?