Summer in List Form

I almost forgot that I was going to use an easy to read list form for my garden happenings -

• Harvested Cherokee trail of tears - 10 vines, good growth = enough dry beans to feed one very small person one very small meal
• harvested garlic - never made big bulbs
• no show by tobacco horn worms - apparently my tomato plants are too lame for catepillars
• turks turban squash was going like gang buster and then the main branch wilted and died. I suspect squash vine borer
• sweet potatoes holding on and alive but not getting bigger. They would like some water, I bet
• stem off my plumeria was broken off accidentally, so I am rooting it in a pot with compost - it looks to be going well. (using water from a/c condensation collection to keep it and the main plumeria watered)
• planting acorn squash, turks turbans and pumpkins this weekend to have in time for fall. I will hand water and set up western shade until they get established - if no rain in september, I'll let them go, too.
• waiting and begging for fall, football season and rain.

Early Summer

I decided to take my vegetable garden off life support. When the 100 degree days and non-stop wind started on March 1st, I knew I was in trouble. With a well as my only current water option and our area of the state in extreme drought, I decided that watering my vegetable garden every day or even every other day just to say I made a few okra and tomatoes would be a bad idea. Those few vegetables would be little consolation the day the well went dry. With my self inflicted draconian ration of one deep soaking a week, my garden was alive, but not thriving or producing. So no more supplemental water.

Of course the week I decided to let it die, it rained an inch and a half, but - too little too late. I am going to focus on getting it ready for my fall garden. I trust better times are ahead.

My cottage garden has been suffering, too. It really loved the rain and decided to not die in response. My plan is to water the cottage beds deeply once a month while the drought continues. Whatever plants can't make through that, will have to go. This summer may be especially bad, but there is no use designing a garden with mild, wet summers in mind when hot and dry are the rule.

I am starting to get a handle on which plants are really drought tolerant and which are only partially so.

The known tough guys - rosemary, succulents (duh), culinary sage, mealy cup sage, artemesias (native is tougher than powis castle - also, duh), Lindheimer senna, russian sage, mexican oregeno, bush germander, flame leaf sumac, copper canyon daisy, pink skullcap, native bunch grasses

The not as tough as advertised - lantanas, mexican sage (especially wimpy - santa barbara), lambs ears (duh again - strike three, I'm out), guara, bicolor iris

Tougher than you'd think - old roses (if it weren't for the deer, these guys would still look great), catmint (very english garden, six hills giant and all that, but still tough), bearded iris, beach vitex

This fall I am going to fill in the dead spaces with more tough customers. And I am going to plant an absolute crap-ton of poppy and larkspur seeds and hope for fall rain. Don't judge, I never claimed to be rational about gardening all the time. Where is the fun in that?

MiddleMay

1. Green Bean harvest has begun





2. Potatoes, onions and garlic are almost ready to be harvested





3. First tomatoes starting to ripen ever so slightly. No sign of tomato (tobacco) horn (hook) worms





4. First okra bloom





5. Jalapenos look ready - how does one know?





6. No courgette production, yet





7. Deer ate all sunflowers, poppies (the Shirley's were finally blooming), some of the roses and even tried my copper canyon daisy. Did not eat bachelors button, despite close proximity.





8. Fig tree is starting to set fruit.





9. Datura started blooming (at my place of business, but my garden none the less)


10. Sweet potato slips are in

In armadillo trapping news, I trapped a (wait for it!)

Fox.

Grey, I think. After a lot of very angry growling from both parties, I managed to set him free. His running buddy (I assume. How can I tell the difference between one fox and another? I can't. It just makes a better story than he was a) rabid b) had distemper or c) really stupid and just came back. Maybe it was the same fox and he was just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. I like that ok.) came into the garden 15 minutes after I let his friend go to check on him. How cute. Stay out of my trap!

It rained, finally, 1.75 inches. I look forward to seeing if everything takes off or if my garden is apathetic and disaffected by all the drought and just shrugs in defeat. I am hoping for taking off with gusto.

The sweet potato planting is of note because every year I want to plant them and every year I forget, but this year I heard Dromgoole mention their availability on his radio show whilst plugging his own store (way to stay professional, John!) and ran over to get some. I'll try to remember what varieties. Maybe John is a pretty good guy after all. Except for when he goes off the edge of the hippidome and uses garden radio time to promote a course held in Red Rock, Texas called something like "Dentistry without going to a Dentist". I kid you not. Home dentistry. I suggest a subtitle or two , (I love subtitles) 1)" or How Take Self Sufficiency Way Too Far and Hurt Yourself and Your Loved Ones While You Do!" 2) "or You Are an Idiot and Deserve To Be In Pain, Let Us Help". Really, people. Besides needless suffering, what does that have to do with gardening, John? Thanks for the sweet potatoes, though.

Mid April Photos

Disclaimer / excuse making - photos are by me, on my iPhone. Not by my Wife, on her awesome camera. That is why they stink. Kentucky Wonder beans. The early leaders of my bean race. Also first in line for the soaker hose. Unfair advantage?

My first tomato on, appropriately enough, Early Girl.

West veg garden bed. Again, 1st for the soaker hoses.

East veg bed. Blue Lake beans already lapped twice by Kentucky Wonder.

Cottage Garden from the front porch.

Mid April happenings

So much for weekly list updates. Biweekly?

1) okra seedlings up 2) watermelon seed sprouted 3) first green tomatoes 4) green beans growing. Kentucky Wonder > Cherokee > Blue Lake 5) onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes still in and getting bigger 6) chard growing strong 7) California poppies blooming, but not Shirley poppies. (come on, Shirley!) 8) one bachelor's button bloomed

That's about it for now. Maybe an actual blog post this weekend.

Spring Pictures

Mutabalis Rose in the foreground. Bush Germander and Gopher Plant are in the bed closer to the house, steadily out growing the space I allotted them.

Bearded, German, Flag or Cemetery (is Cemetery just for the white ones?) Iris. I have yellow and purple variates, both handed down from my wife's aunt, who dug them from her mother's garden. Evergreen, drought and deer resistant, gorgeous blooms. I can't say it enough, plant some. In fact, I'll say it to myself - plant some more!

I was very proud of my string trellis design with the string buried in the ground as an anchor. I shouldn't have been, almost all the strings are now loose or not touching the ground at all. I don't know if the string just decomposes rapidly in the ground or if something like a pill bug is chewing through them. Or if the cotton string contracts when it dries and just pulls out of the ground. Any way about it, they aren't working great. Next time, I will tie the string to sticks and shove the sticks into the soil. I have no idea why I didn't think about that this time. Yes, I do, I am not that bright to begin with and I was drinking at the time. (a phrase which happens to be the working title of my memoirs.)

Our Redbud in bloom for the first time in three years here. I think Redbuds can be rather garish, ok, really ugly, when they are planted out by themselves. Especially in parking lots. But mixed with some Live Oaks as an understory tree, they are very tasteful. See mine, for example.

Pictures and vegetable news

Not my garden. Great Dixter in England. This is what my garden would look like if I were rich and it rained. Ever. Also, not my picture. I pilfered it from the world wide interwebs at some point and forgot where, so no credit is given here. Sorry photographer, you did a nice job and deserve some credit. The odd looking chimneys are on top of the Oast House, for roasting hops.

My spring vegetable garden as of last week.

The potatoes are in tubs in the background. I can tell, you like my bean trellises. That is butchers twine run from the iron trellises into the ground to the right. On the bed to the left, I wired two pieces of scrap wood together and wired them to my tomato cages (which, after the indeterminate tomato disaster of 2010, were a must) then ran the butchers twine from the wood to the ground. To the right is a can of the native Lone Star, Paupertas cervesisiae, that played a large roll in the design and installation of the trellises.

Turk's Turban, Cucurbita maxima, from seeds that I harvested last late fall. We bought the squash as a fall decoration, used it when through to make a winter squash soup and then I kept and dried the seeds. I am amazed that the seeds were still viable and now I have two seedlings. I may make a gardener out of myself yet. I know, they are early for fall production. I'll plant more in late June.