Oh, how true it is

Article from Slate.com about Gardens in Movies.

OH NOES!!!!

The pineapple, it is dead. D-E-D, dead.
I'm not exactly positive about what finally did the plant in, but I think it was a combination of the wind storm at the end of November and me bringing it inside (after the wind storm) because the temps got below freezing a couple of nights. I left the pineapple and the oregano in the house until the week before Christmas. I only put them back outside because of the chance of above freezing temps through the rest of the month. While I was restoring the plant to its normal position on the deck, I decided I should 'straighten' it as the wind storm had bent the plant to the side. That is when the top half of the pineapple just came off in my hand.

It was a sad, sad day. Especially since the plant was supposed to bloom this summer and perhaps even give us a pineapple.

Also, because of the freezing temps, the watermelon died, and the tomato finally died, as did the pepper plants. The lantana plants went dormant for the winter and all of the what-ever-the-red-wild-flowers-are died as well (they should have re-seeded themselves though).

Oh Happy Day!

The watermelon has FINALLY decided to bear some fruit. Too bad this 'fruit' is currently the size of an olive. Sigh...It's like my yard is out to get me or something...

retarded little cantaloupe

that's right, the cantaloupe plant is retarded. The plant, for the longest time, has been devoid of most the leaves and has just been vining up the fence. Then, the other day I went out and I saw this:

Okay...so not QUITE

I was wrong. It's not quite the end of the season. Oh yes, I have stopped taking care of things (like watering), but today the stunted little watermelon plant out front has flowers on it. I don't know if it will be able to make any fruit...if not only because we are at about the point where the weather gets cooler, and watermelons don't like cool weather. well, here's to you little watermelon plant! I hope you are able to make a wee watermelon...it'd be even better if it was edible!

End of the season

I think the time has come to stop taking care of the plants. The canteloupe in the back appears to have all but died out and the basil is dutifully re-seeding itself. The oregano in the flower pot is drying out and I ought to cut it back. The tomatoes in the front don't have any tomatoes left on them, so I should go and pull those out of the ground as well. The peppers are still producing, as are the lima bean plants, but for the most part I'm fine with letting all of them die off. The flowering plants are doing pretty well...well enough that I don't have to water them or anything. Though the lantana in the front by the driveway are looking a little peaked, and the Shumard Oak probably should be deep watered as the leaves are starting to look a little crispy...but, at the same time, some of the neighbor's trees are already dropping their leaves, so it may just be that fall is coming early this year.

In other news we did some home improvement stuff, so now I've got a 24" long glass light cover and a round light cover which I want to do something artsy with...like maybe somehow use both as planters or something...though I don't know how to go about doing this...

more fruit!

I don't think I mentioned it, but the cantaloupe plant in the back did produce 2 cantaloupe. One of the fruits decided to stop growing and it just kinda sat there looking half-ripe for a long time (one side of the fruit had netting, the other side didn't). That one, was flavorless. Completely and utterly flavorless. It didn't taste bad, it just tasted like gelled water really.

The second one, however, was pretty good. It wasn't great, but it was pretty good, and when cantaloupes cost $1.29 at the store, and I only paid $0.80 for the seeds, I think it's a pretty good deal. This was the funny cantaloupe that originally started out wedged between the liner bricks and the fence, so for a long time it looked retarded. But it eventually rounded out and as i said, was good enough for government work.

Overall, I'd say I'd suggest the Hearts of Gold cantaloupe and the Cayenne peppers. Both have done well. The Roma tomatoes are good (as long as you don't eat a lot of tomatoes).

Spiders abound because it's been so damn wet the mosquitos have taken over.

Spinybacked Orbweaver web in the setting sun.

I know what's eating the beans

Okay, so it looks like the slugs and snails go gah gah over the bean seedlings. grr.

Toads too!

various pictures of the Anole I found in the yard today...

This one is actually a really bad photo...but I just call it 'Artsy'. And really, I probably should have cropped all of them...meh, I'm lazy.

Yay for Hymenoptera Braconidae

Yep, that's right, we've got Parasitic Wasps. Yay!!!! Here they are eating a hornworm:
The wasp pupae are the little white grains of rice on the worm. Eventually, they will kill the worm and eat it. Furthermore, they are called 'wasps' but they aren't harmful to humans. Is it any wonder that some people will pay good money to buy some of these wasps to naturally control garden pests like caterpillars, ants, and aphids?

Caterpillars (8-5-07)

It's okay though, these ones are most likely Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars. They like plants in the carrot family (carrots, dill, fennel, parsley). Had I known about the parsley and the fact that the butterflies and caterpillars would be here, I probably wouldn't have been so keen on eradicating the excess parsley from the garden. (both pictures unedited, and I used the telephoto lens on "macro" mode).

Caterpillar about ready to pupate (make its little chrysalises thing). (Backyard garden)

Smaller caterpillar. If you click on the picture to see the full sized image, you can just make out little 'horns' on the back. These go away as the caterpillar gets closer to pupating. (front yard garden--this parsley plants was one that I cut down to the ground and it started coming back).

Also, I found a praying mantis, but by the time I got inside to get the camera, it was gone.

I severely cut back the tomato plants--because of all the rain we've been getting, the tomatoes haven't been doing so well and the leaves all started turning yellow and looking rotten. The last couple of times I've pulled fruit off, it's had soft spots on it...almost like the fruit itself got too much water in it.

The cantaloupe plant also was getting too much water...it's a good thing it's supposed to be a drying trend now. The plant, though, has 2 cantaloupes and today I went out and fertilized some of the female flowers (I got that idea from this blog that Colin wrote...also, maybe I ought to try a ginormous pumpkin some year soon).

Oh right, because of all the rain, the rosemary plant finally gave up and died. I think I'm going to leave it in the ground though, just to see if it happens to come back next year.

Pictures from the garden Friday July 20

Go to this link. I'm too lazy to repost all the pictures here.

damn birds

Damn birds made off with one of my almost ripe tomatoes. Stupid ass birds. good thing I don't like tomatoes, eh?

7-08-07

Fruits of my labor:
So, we've gotten a few cayennes (probably 5 or so, but there are more on the way), a handful of Lima beans (not enough serve though), and a tomato (and 2 more close to ripe)...so far, I think the cayennes are a keeper. The tomatoes just don't do as well as I like. and it seems like some animal goes about digging up the Lima beans.

the cantaloupe in the back yard has taken off, and a few of the basil seeds I planted came up, but they're funny looking plants compared to last year's basil. And I noticed today that one of the reseeded basils came up too.

Herbs:
last weekend we got a letter from our Home Owners Association (which is only funny because we don't have any associated fees for said home owners association, and there's no covenants or anything) stating that we needed to mow and trim our lawn. This of course spawned quite the strongly worded letter from Shawn, but it also got me off my lazy ass to go out and rip up all the plants that were dead or i didn't like. So, I cut one of the reseeded parsley plants out front down to the ground. Then I dried the leaves. Now I got 2 sandwich baggies full of parsley.

So, my suggestion if you're going to grow any sort of herbs is to invest in a dehydrator. Mostly because you'll need it. Plus, they're great.

Mulching/Composting:
We went and bought a chipper from Harbor Freight on Saturday. This was so we could finally chip up all the branches from last year we cut off of our trees, plus the new pile of branches Shawn cut off the trees this year. We spent 4 hours chipping and sorting. Yes, we put the branches in the chipper, but the chipper doesn't exactly do much to leaves so we had to sort through all the detritus to pull out the large chunks of leaves so we could use the wood chips as mulch cover in the garden and out front. All I really have to say is that my legs hurt. well, after 4 hours of squatting I bet your legs would hurt too!

Rain/Watering:
Austin has gotten a large amount of rain over the last couple of weeks (this is the year that Marble Falls got 19" of rain in 6 hours--Lake Travis crested at 701 msl, and the LCRA thinks they'll have to have floodgates open until August). It started when Dani came to town on June 20th, and yesterday was the first day it hasn't rained. I ended up watering some newly transplanted plants (just to keep them from dying), but other than that, I haven't watered anything. Every time I've gone to look at the little rain gauge, it's always had at least half an inch of water in it (and I check the thing about once a day).

beware the cayennes

...for they are spicy and even though you wash your hands 4 times after cutting them, you will never get all the capsaicin off and will inevitably rub your eye. Then you will be in pain.

When Do Seeds Expire?

Taken, in part, from HGTV:

Q: Do seeds have an expiration date?

A: How long seeds last is really a function of type of seed and quality of storage (cool and dry is better than hot and wet).

Vegetable seed viability
beans - 3 years
beets - 2 years
carrots - 3 years
corn - 2 years
cucumbers - 5 years
lettuce - 3 years
peas - 3 years
peppers - 2 years
pumpkins - 4 years
radishes - 5 years
spinach - 5 years
tomato - 4 years
watermelon - 4 years

Q: Most seed packs contain more seeds than I would ever plant in a growing season. Can I save some seeds for next year? Also, can I simply save some seeds directly from the inside of the pepper, for instance?

A: Yes, you should be able to save most seeds to be planted in future years - in general, it is best to store unused seed in airtight containers in the fridge. You can save seed from an open pollinated plant, but be aware that if it's a hybrid, the seed may not come 'true to form' (that is, the seed is much more likely to revert to one of the parent plants and not the plant you planted). If you want to save seeds from your garden, allow the fruit (or flower if you're going for flower seeds) to fully ripen, almost to the rotten stage, then scrape out the seeds and let them dry in an airy place. Once the seeds are completely dry, put them in airtight containers and store in the fridge.

6-25-07

As of 6-25-07:

2 cayenne peppers with one more almost ready (and damn those things are hot)
1 almost ripe tomato (but it looks like it's got blossom end rot)
and a few lima bean pods seem ready, but I haven't picked them yet.

Also, on Friday 6-22, I got 4 lantana plants (2 red, 2 white), a Renee's Garden packet of heirloom mix tomato plants, a Renee's Garden packet of Thai chili peppers, and a tin of "Grow your own Cat Grass!" from the Natural Gardener.

The heirloom mix is Brandywine Tomatoes, Marvel Stripe Tomatoes, and Green Zebra Tomatoes. The biggest problem with these is that two of them produce pound sized fruit, and the plants grow up to 6'. 6'! Yeah, shoulda read the back of the packet before buying.

The Thai chili pepper mix is Red Demon and Orange Fogo. These peppers are hotter than the cayennes--they have double to triple the amount of capsaicin of the Cayennes. Well, at least Shawn should like them...especially as I think these were the peppers he wanted in the first place, we just couldn't find any plants of them at the stores.

tomatoes

1) I had to use twisties to tie one of the damn tomato plants to the cage because the branch broke, but it's not really broken, just broken enough to not support the weight of the branch anymore...so now it's twistied...for how long I don't know.

2) Noticed the beginnings of "Blossom End Rot" which...looks exactly like it sounds--the blossom end of the tomato starts rotting. I've read that it's best to remove these as you find them because these tomatoes taste like crap and look like crap thus there is no reason to have the plant continue to produce them. Also, it's caused by a calcium deficiency in the soil...which may be partially because of too much watering (something about when the soil is too wet, the tomato plants will suck up a ton of the water and then evapotranspirate (aka sweat) the water through the leaves...thus pulling all the nutrients into the leaves and not into the fruit).

3) Possible Tomato Horn Worm found. Damn. I knew something had been eating the tomatoes, and horn worms are about it...because the tomato and tobacco plants are actually mildly poisonous, they generally don't have a lot of pest problems. Well, except for the aforementioned horn worms.

2" of rain in 24 hours

Wow. If this keeps up, I may never HAVE to water my garden.

Tomatoes today

So, I noticed today that there are some actual tomatoes on our plants. And lots of flowers.

Lima beans are flowering, and I noticed a few pods.

Cayenne peppers have small peppers (approximately 1"-3" long).

Corn is being eaten by caterpillars or slugs or something, bah!

Watermelon is too shaded by the large-ass tomato plants. Note to self: do not plant tomato plants IN FRONT of everything else.

Also, large rain storm over labor day weekend--probably 3" over 3 days. Poor soaking backyard garden...

A few Basil plants have survived in the back yard, and a few cantaloupes. The back yard garden is obviously much less protected than the front yard garden, so the 3" of rain pretty much washed away all the mulch. I brought home my basil plant from work because it was looking like it wasn't getting enough sun and Ross gave me some pumpkin seedlings that he dug up from his garden. Most of those didn't survive the weekend because of the shock of being dug up.

Comparison

April 29, 2007:


May 19, 2007:We got approximately 3" of rain between April 29 and May 19. Watering on my side has been pretty minimal. I think I did one shot of Compost Tea. As I said, I'm claiming it's the beans that have made everything grow so well in the front garden. The pepper plants have already started flowering, and there are some baby cayenne peppers. The watermelon/cantaloupe are growing, though not awesomely--so I doubt we'll get any fruit from them. And something is munching on the tomatoes, though I can't find any horn worms or slugs, or anything else that would eat them--it's probably Figacat then. Some of the corn looks really good, and some of it looks kinda bad, so I don't know how much we'll get from them. Growing up in Colorado, planting 12 corn plants wasn't ever enough to feed a family of 4...well, all at the same time in any case.

The back garden is pretty barren. The herbs are still there, and the flowers are surviving (though the red columbines haven't bloomed since I planted them--the blue ones seem to bloom about every other week or so).

Today (May 19), I went and cut back the parsley (which is already wanting to flower), rosemary, thyme, and garden oregano. The little dehydrator is full of herbs right now. After this batch, I think I need to start drying some of the flower pot oregano, as it's going gangbusters now too.

Note to self

The next door neighbor's cat insists on using the front garden as a litter box. I don't know why. There is plenty of wood chip/dirt area in our front yard that is NOT THE GARDEN that the cat could use. Boo Figacat!

Aw Beans!

Everything is doing well. The corn has taken off, the beans have taken off, the tomatoes look great (I'm going to say it's because of the beans, though there's no proof of that). The only things not taking off are the cantaloupes, watermelons and peppers.

It's been cool weather (for Austin--which means that it's like in the 70s and low 80s). It's been cloudy (awesome, this cuts down on the watering I have to do).

The wildflowers are going crazy, though it's still the same two types of wildflowers we had last year, and for the most part they're growing in the same spot they did last year which gets afternoon shade, and dappled sun...which is weird considering that the flowers are supposed to want full sun. The flowers planted in the front berm are doing well. That area does get full sun. In fact, I don't think I've seen the pink stuff ever do so well (in all of the 1 other year the stuff was planted).

The back garden has finally started growing--today I noticed some cantaloupes, a watermelon plant and the basil finally started coming up. No beans though. I think they always get eaten. I had to cut the flower stalk off of the parsley already. There are 4 individual plants in the back garden and today I noticed that some seeds had managed to get out to the front berm too as there are 3 small parsleys around the purple lantana plant. We planted two last year, right before the freeze and we didn't think either plant would make it. They both pulled through, though one ended up dying because the pink wildflowers grew too quickly and blocked the sunlight to it.

The blue columbine is flowering again, but the red one has no new buds on it. The "purple plant" back there hasn't had flowers since I planted it last year. The hosta is starting to actually grow. Keep in mind that this part of the garden gets no direct sun. Ever. Of course, after the big tree dies it will get full sun (please don't die big tree!).

I'm looking to buy some stepping stone things to put through the back garden. This is because I hate walking through the dirt or walking through the rocks to get to the composter.

Friday the 13th

Hopefully the horrible storm stays to the north of us. but aside from that:

The columbines and hosta are doing well.

in the front yard: Shawn ended up watering the plants one day because I am lazy and don't pay attention to such things as plants (what do you mean they don't take care of themselves?)

The tomatoes don't look so good...the peppers are doing alright...corn and beans are coming up, as well as a few cantaloupes/watermelons (I'm not sure which because I do not pay attention to such things as WHERE I plant seeds, only that I have planted seeds).

April 7th

Last soft freeze of the season. We set new records for lows. Damn, I knew I should have gone off the calendar at work--it told me that April 9th is the latest freeze that Austin has ever had. EVER. Meh, it looks like the plants survived in any case...it probably just delayed the germination of the seeds. Though it looks like there may be some corn coming up already.

Gardenin' 2007

Bought the stuff for and planted the garden today. That was fun.

2 columbine plants (one red, one blue)
1 hosta plant (Francee--that's what the tag says anyhow)
6 cayenne pepper plants
6 roma tomato plants
packet of corn seeds
packet of lima bean seeds
packet of watermelon seeds
packet of basil seeds
packet of cantaloupe seeds

the columbines and hosta went in the "shade" garden, aka the upper garden
the watermelon and cantaloupe seeds went in the sun garden, aka the lower garden
the basil seeds went in the sun garden
the corn, bean, and some more watermelon went in the front yard garden
the pepper and tomatoes also went in the front garden

Shawn thinks we should have split up the plants a little better--you know, 2 pepper plants in the backyard, 4 in the front, 3 tomato plants in the back, 3 in the front, etc. However, I'm lazy and he's not helping, thus they go where I want them. besides, it's looking like the back yard sun garden is starting to turn into the unofficial herb garden--some of the parsley from last year came back and so it's got a huge area taken up already. I think I'm going to have rolly-pollie problems though (I swear they're the ones that keep eating my lima bean seeds) so I'm gonna have to do something about that...

I retract my previous statement

On Friday evening I realized my error in my tree guessing. That is, I didn't bother going to the local nurseries (aka Home Depot--and this is just a guess as to where the previous owners got the trees...this is mostly because everything else in this house is from Home Depot).

Anyhoo, on Friday, I went to the Walmart to get some cake decorating things, and I decided to take a gander at the various trees in stock. This is when I decided that it's more than likely that the tree in the front yard is not a Hawthorn, but a Bradford Flowering Pear Tree. Likewise the other tree in the front yard is a Shumard Red Oak.

Also, Ross told me that the Home Depot has Improved Meyer's Lemon trees (update: The Home Depot is out of them--they still have satsuma mandarins and some funny lemon) as well as Columbines which oddly (or not so oddly) grow in the shade down here. So, we'll plant some of them in our shade garden and see how they do--I just really don't want to plant Hosta all over in the back corner.

One Tree Down...

So, one of the trees in the front yard started blooming this week. It appears to be some sort of hawthorn tree (Texas Hawthorn, Green Hawthorn, or Reverchon...probably, I think...maybe).

What I want to plant this year

So, I think in the front yard I shall plant some Texas Sage, Texas Lantana, and possibly a Texas Mountain Laurel tree...are we seeing the theme here? That's right, TEXAS PLANTS. Maybe now the damn things won't all die.

But then, the wildflowers we "planted" haven't necessarily been doing well...but then, they also were about the only things to last all summer without water. Thus, I gotta say that I like them, even if only a few came up, at least they reseeded themselves and the seedlings survived the freezes.

Trees

So, according to one of our old neighbors (old as in he's now moved to Sun City, TX...so I guess that's 'Old' in 2 different ways) told us back in the day one of the trees in our front yard died, and Larry, in his infinite wisdom decided that it would cost too much to have the stump of the tree removed, so instead he had the tree chopped up into tiny pieces and then piled on top of said tree stump. They then planted 2 baby trees (which were probably 5 year trees), but not in the same place as said stump--in that area they planted 4 Devil Plants aka groundcover that never dies and a couple of Easter Lillies...which, why? oh well.

Anyhow, I've got this new theory that the tree in the front yard was an Arizona Ash because the tree died about 3 years ago, and all the neighbors that have Arizona Ash are starting to have their trees die off on them. But, if they originally had Arizona Ash, which notoriously does not do well down here (as in it grows quick and lives for about 30 years then dies off in 'chunks'), then what other crappy trees do we have in our yard?



This is the tree by our driveway. Yes yes, I know, leaves help more than bark pictures, but there aren't leaves on the tree right now. And look at it this way: NOW I will pay attention to leaves, flowers, and seed pods so I can take pictures and post them here. DUH!

This is the tree next to our front door. I think this tree is dying--every year it seems that it takes longer for the leaves to come out on it than any of our other trees, so it's probably got no leaves for about 8 months of the year. This one has to be an ash tree of some sort if the pictures at the Arizona Allergy place are any indication--the second leaf picture looks EXACTLY like this tree's leaves.

This tree is other remaining "new" tree in our front yard. It may be an oak of some sort...I also think that it needs more water than we give it, so I'm going to try water it more this summer.

This last thing is probably a bush...they had 2 on the side of the house, but one of them wasn't getting enough sun, so it died last year, and there was another of these bushes already dead in the backyard when we moved in...we don't know why that one died. This is either Cleyera or Red Tip Photinia. I really need to pay attention to new growth this year then.

Does ANYTHING grow here?

So, some history for the poor person that just happens to stumble upon this blog:

I moved from Denver, Colorado to Austin, Texas in January of 2005. In Colorado I had a garden, and usually, my garden did really well--I was able to grow pumpkins, corn (albeit not very much--in order to get any significant amount you have to plant an entire garden of the stuff), broccoli, radishes, lettuce, carrots, peas, beans, tomatoes, mint, onions and cucumbers. Furthermore, plants that I had inside also seemed to flourish.

Then, I moved here.

Most of my plants I brought from Colorado died within a couple of months. The only plant that survived was the bamboo. In addition to all my plants dying, it seemed that I couldn't get any plants to start growing in the house either--the bonzai pine trees started to grow, but quickly died off, the italian windowsill garden produced some piddly little plants that never got bigger than "seedling", the other herb windowsill garden never really grew, and all the flowering plants never even germinated. In February, I went and got some calla lily bulbs, I planted them, only four came up, and of those four, only 2 flowered. Plants I planted in the yard usually died off pretty quick--the only plant that has successfully stayed around for longer than one season was the tropical hibiscus bush, and that is probably because it has 8" of mulch around it. No, seriously, 8"...minimum.

I waited a full year before thinking about doing an actual garden. And, I decided, on a lark, to try to start an avocado tree. The tree did great, until the cat fell on it and snapped it in half, but the tree managed to survive and now is sitting at my office where it's safe from the leaf-eating, tree-landing cat.

For whatever stupid reason, the husband and I decided to put the garden along the south fence. I don't know why, it's stupid, the area is probably the shadiest area in our backyard. But then, compared to the shady areas in Colorado, our yard is downright bright. Anyhow, we made a garden, it's probably 24' long by about 3' wide...it's got two levels to it even. We filled it with good garden soil, mulch, and manure.


Then we went and got the plants.

We got a couple tomato plants, oregano, rosemary, thyme, watermelon seeds, cantaloupe seeds, marigolds, basil, carrot seeds and lima bean seeds. We planted everything. Everything was going swimmingly and then the rosemary died...next was one of the tomato plants...then the squirrels got to the carrots and lima beans...most of the watermelons and cantaloupes never came up...the oregano and thyme seemed stunted. We watered, we mulched, we bought a composter and started making our own compost (and compost tea). We bought another tomato plant, and another rosemary...plus another oregano, and a pineapple plant, and a catnip plant, and pennyroyal. The new oregano and pineapple were put in planters instead of in the garden, the catnip and pennyroyal were planted in nice planters and taken to work (since then, the pennyroyal died, and the catnip is getting by...just barely). The tomato and rosemary replaced the dead ones in the garden. Ultimately, the only plants that really produced anything were the tomatoes and the basil. Everything else died...or, as I said in the case of the herbs, remained stunted. The only plants doing well were the pineapple and oregano (in planters outside), and the avocado tree (at work). Even though the basil and the tomatoes were producing, they still looked pretty peaked most the time (and yes, I was watering every day). To top it off, the tomatoes developed a case of "Blossom-end rot" meaning that you'd have a good tomato, and then at the tip of it, there would be a rotten black spot. It's apparently due to a lack of calcium in the soil...oh, and it seemed that as soon as the tomatoes turned some form of "red" they would immediately start to shrivel and die.



By the end of August, I had given up hope on the garden, so I stopped watering, added a layer of mulch and compost to the Rosemary, thyme and oregano, and didn't touch the garden again for a while.

I noticed the basil and parsley (damn, I forgot to mention the parsley--never fear, it died too) had reseeded themselves and I now had little baby plants. Then the freeze came. I managed to save 3 basils. As of right now, I think one parsley plant made it through the most recent freeze, along with the aforementioned garden herbs. The pineapple and oregano are doing well, but then, they go in the house when it's cold. But, I digress--back to the basils. The basil...oh the basil...The basil was doing great until New Year's. Then, they apparently weren't getting enough sun sitting on the window sill and started looking a little sick. I transplanted them and took them to work. One has since died and the other ain't lookin' too hot.

I will try to post pictures later. Yes, I took pictures of my efforts. It was because the gardening book said that I should make a notebook to document things, to help me do better in the future about where to plant what plants...HA funniest thing ever!

In anycase, it's time to start thinking about what to grow in the garden this next year...