April Pictures

I think I need to move the bird bath a little to the right.

Mutabilis Rose - an antique China rose.

Salvia farinacea, Mealycup Sage, one of my favorite natives. Easy, tough, blooms from April until October, and for me, free. It was wild in my yard and just came up through my cottage garden beds the first year.

Potatoes, peas, onions and beyond the fence, rubbish.

My first tomato of the year. Blissfully unaware of the gruesome fate that awaits it once it ripens.

Mid April Update, Soil Testing Delimma

Once again, I've been annoyingly busy with work. The fact that my busy season at work coincides with the start of the spring gardening season is something I will reconcile as soon as possible.
I have, however, found some time to garden and accomplished a few task. First, I finally sent in the soil sample I've been threatening to collect for 6 months now. And the result is - I wish I hadn't. I'm more confused than ever. And the internet isn't helping. My results came back that my phosphorous is sky high, so high that it is probably binding up other vital elements and causing poor growth and chlorosis. I can tolerate many ailments in a plant, but chlorosis gets me down. I hate plants with yellow leaves. I even hate plants that are supposed to have yellow leaves. I believe anyone who has ever had to garden in a region where plants are prone to chlorosis would never buy, or even consider buying, a yellow variegated plant. While we are on the subject, any variegation is tacky in my opinion.
So my phosphorous is high, what to do? A&M sent a handout with recommendation to not add phosphorous fertilizer or high phosphorous compost for 5 to 7 years. Since I am trying to garden organically, and compost is kind the whole point of the organic gardening, and I am not likely to test my compost every 6 months, I was not happy with this turn of events. Some quick googling revealed that my garden phosphorous is at the center of a hotly contested debate. On one side is A&M and on the other is Howard Garrett. A&M's philosophy was outlined within the handout - I had, through excess fertilizer (no) or compost too high in phosphorous (yes - turkey manure compost makes up 1/6 of my garden soil) overloaded my soil with phosphorous and I need to knock it off until the next year of jubilee. Garrett says A&M's test is wrong, that they take no account of how a plant actually uses and uptakes nutrients and my phosphorous is likely fine and that I should continue to add compost and organic fertilizers as need be. Mr. Garrett recommends not testing your soil at A&M, but using a private lab (one he has no monetary association with, I'm sure) that will give radically different results when testing the same soil due to A&M's outdated testing methods. I went to A&M, I have Garrett's book - I'm torn. I'm an evidence based, scientific method kind of guy, so I need to have look at the research and consult some experts. I guess for the spring I'll just keep on adding some of my home made compost when I plant and take it easy on the high phosphorous fertilers (John Dromgooles Flower Power, Medina Hasta Grow).
We had big rain storms at the end of last week and my gardens are officially out of control. My potatoes are all waist high and have blooms. My tomatoes continue to thrive and I even have one little green tomato. The onion, garlic and shallots are still going strong, I understand I am to leave them in the ground until the tops yellow and lay over (in this case, I guess I'll accept yellowing from these plants). Some of the onions are blooming. I pulled out the parlsey and arugula and escarole as they were all bolting, but left in my cilantro to bloom. In the back of my mind I think I read somewhere that cilantro blooms attract beneficial insects, but even if that is not true, I am going to let them go to seed and try to collect my own coriander.
I am having a problem with pill bugs. I think I have too much mulch in my vegetable garden, too close to my plants. They are nibbling any leaves that are too close to the ground, but the real problem is that they have killed two bean plants and three courgettes by eating through the stems. I have read to put out diatamaceous earth. I also read to put out grapefruit halves and just throw the halves, full of pill bugs, away every morning. I think I'll try the grapefruit first, following one of my main rules of gardening - try what is cheap or what you already have on hand. Grapefruit halves meeting both of these criteria.
Back to onions, garlic and shallots - I think next year they will be booted from the vegetable garden to the cottage garden to open up more space. No point in protecting something that nothing really wants to eat. My next experiment in incorporating vegetables into the cottage garden will be okra. I've never grown okra, but from what I can tell their blooms look like hollyhocks. Also, I found okra on a list of plants deer will eat but don't like to. I figure if I tuck them into and behind some of my stinkier and more prickly plants (rosemary and yucca for example), the deer might leave them alone.
I've also made time to buy some plants. Shocking, I know. I bought two Lindhiemer Sennas to replace the ones I lost in the frost (one of which might still be alive, now that I look again), a fig ivy to cover my pump house and an impulse buy of a non-fruiting olive tree (99 cents - how am going to walk away from that). I went to Barton Springs Nursery in Westlake, which is great. The best native plant selection I've seen. The most 4 inch pots of natives I've seen, a real boon to a gardener with more time than money. I know that this blog is starting to look like a review of local garden centers the way I spread my purchasing around, but this place is amazing. The best in town.
Next up for the garden - mowing what little grass I have for our 4th annual croquet tournament (everyone is invited!), drip irrigation, okra seeds, planting my sunflower starts, probably purchasing more plants from some new nursery that I will tell you all about.

Unexpected day in garden, sunflower seeds, more Kew veg

I ended up having some time to work in the garden this afternoon. I wasn't expecting to be free to garden, so I didn't have a plan or list of chores. On my way home form work, I stopped by "Bloom", a nursery in Dripping Springs. Bloom is a very small affair, taking advantage of garden space in one of Dripping Springs few decent eateries (sorry, Sonic), Thyme and Dough. At first, the nausea brought on by the sickening pun of a name kept me away from the establishment, but good eater that I am, I eventually went in. It's a good place - croissants, uppity sandwiches, torts and such. Bloom, while small, is locally owned and run and it shows. The plant selection is spot on, if a plant can grow in Dripping Springs, she has it. I wanted some basil and some mint for containers, which I found. As good readers know, I couldn't leave without buying something I didn't need or have a plan for. This time it was sunflower seeds. At least at $1.79 each for two seed packets, it will be a cheap impulse purchase.
I tried sunflowers twice before, failing each time. A phenomenal feat, to fail to grow what are basically weeds. My first failure was when I lived in Alvin. I chalked up the sunflower's death there to the fact that Alvin, Texas makes you wish you had never been born, or at least died when you were young. The sunflowers probably broke out of the ground, looked at Alvin, looked at me and said "Why?" and died. The next time I killed sunflowers was here in lovely Austin, at a rent house on 38th street. We had a crazy old neighbor lady who peered over the dilapidated fence and gave out bad advice sprinkled with threats ("the last renters at your house left their porch lights on late, like you do. They were broken into. I think the thiefs pick houses with porch lights on late. I wouldn't leave mine on, unless I wanted to be robbed."). She occasionally gave me Alvinesque feelings, but I can't blame the plant's death on her. I killed them my favorite way, neglect. There are many ways to kill plants and, as of this weekend, I'm proud to write that I've done them all. Neglect is best - pick a good plant, put in the right place and then ignore said plant until it is almost dead, at which point you can keep ignoring it or realize your error and try to save it. It doesn't matter -the plant is a goner. Next is ignorance. Putting a plant in the wrong spot, picking the wrong plant, planting at the wrong time, planting incorrectly. They all work. They don't give that good empty feeling like neglect, but ignorance is effective. And last, you can kill by caring for your plant too much. This is well recognized as a sub-category of ignorance, but I list it separately here because it is new to me. Is there any such thing as too much compost, too much organic fertilizer or too much water? Turns out, yes. I killed the ever loving snot out of 7 mexican feather grass this past year. This is a plant that, when left alone, has reseeded and is growing very well in my caliche drive. Amazing.
So this year, sunflowers for the third time. I think I will direct seed some into the garden and start some in peat pots. Surely one or the other will work.
I planted cucumbers and courgettes (British for zucchini) from the Kew seed selection today. Same as with the peas, it felt good just to pretend my garden is in London. The instructions on the back of the seed packets said to start the seeds in sterile seed germination media and then transplant outdoors. I didn't have any such thing around, so I direct seeded them. A quick reference of Garrett and Beck's Organic Texas Gardening, the definitive text, revealed direct seeding is just fine. But I hate to stray from Royal Botanic suggestion, so I will start some transplants at the same time I start the sunflowers.