Garden 2011: 10/29/11

Veggie Plant Winners (Round 4)

Summary:

Black Krim (2 plants) - 5 tomatoes total, 3 ruined by squirrels or birds.
Roma (2 plants) - 5 tomatoes total, 1 ruined by blossom end rot, 1 on the vine (the plants have started blooming again because of the cooler weather).
Crookneck Squash - 3 squash total, 2 eaten by squirrels, 1 picked too late to eat.
Red LaSoda Potatoes (5 planted) - 10 potatoes
White Kennebec Potatoes (4 planted) - 2 potatoes
Sweet Potato - 0 thus far
Watermelon - 1 thus far - I had 3, one was eaten by possums, the other I just picked, and the third one is still on the vine.
Eggplant - 3 total - the first one fell off the plant so I was going to use it, but forgot about it until it was soft. The other 2 were used in Pasta Alla Norma. One of the plants is blooming again, but I don't know if we'll get any more eggplants before the freezes start.
Cayenne Pepper - 5
Thai Red Demon Pepper - 53 peppers total, 2 eaten by squirrels/birds, 2 given to Linda Lehmusvirta. Plus, more on the way.
Jalapeno Pepper - 16 peppers (though 10 of those are tiny and green and have no heat at all - the plant stem just started drying up so I pulled the peppers off of that stem, but the other 2 stems are fine), plus more on the way.

Support Your Independent Nursery Month: The Great Outdoors

Pam at Digging has declared October as Support your Independent Nursery Month. As such, some of the local bloggers are posting entries every Wednesday (I love the sound of deadlines as they go whooshing by) celebrating the more popular independent nurseries in the Austin area. The nurseries we are blogging about are, by no means, the only independent nurseries in the Austin area, and I fully encourage you to seek our your nearest independent nursery.

In case you haven't already noticed, I am completely and utterly behind in posting about our local independently owned garden centers (as in this post was supposed to be LAST Wednesday).

Anyhow, let us commence, shall we?

The Great Outdoors is probably the most visited (by me) of the big local garden centers. This is because it is within spitting distance of my office and so it makes a good lunch-hour-gotta-look-and/or-buy-plants location.

The Great Outdoors is probably most noted for their giant topiary elephant, and possibly secondly for their birds. While most garden centers have cats, the Great Outdoors has an assortment of parrots in their seed house. And let's be honest, I do love me some birds, and some seeds.

Of all of the garden centers, GO is the only place I've actually asked for help from the staff. And they are more than willing to answer your questions or otherwise help in any way they can - in fact, one of the times I just kinda stood there looking forlornly at all the options for flying insect control (I had a problem with gnats at my office). One of the gentlemen was very helpful in getting me set up with the sticky traps (least toxic).

Furthermore, Merrideth (the owner of GO) is probably the second most well known garden guy in Austin (the first being John Dromgoole from The Natural Gardener). Which, is saying something.

So, if you're ever in the South Congress area (by Penn Field), look up the Great Outdoors.

Bird Feeders

The hummingbird feeder has been lonely these last few weeks since the resident hummers have all headed south for the winter.

I just hung two new feeders in the front tree - I decided that I had to hang them since I've been noticing more of the smaller birds hanging out around the lone platform feeder. And of course they were all being chased off by the larger birds. I hung them in a location so the cats can watch them, but I neglected to put them in a good spot for human viewing. Eh - it's all for the birds, right?

Support Your Independent Nursery Month: The Natural Gardener

Pam at Digging has declared October as Support your Independent Nursery Month. As such, some of the local bloggers are posting entries every Wednesday (I love the sound of deadlines as they go whooshing by) celebrating the more popular independent nurseries in the Austin area. The nurseries we are blogging about are, by no means, the only independent nurseries in the Austin area, and I fully encourage you to seek our your nearest independent nursery.



When I first moved down here (in January of 2005), one of the first things I asked my fiancé (now husband) was "Where's the closest good garden center?"

See, back in Colorado I lived in a town called Parker. And Parker has a huge independently owned garden center called Tagawa Gardens. Of course, most of the facility is inside a giant greenhouse (what with Colorado being too cold to garden for 6 months out of the year), but they offer classes, natural gardening solutions, knowledgeable staff, and plants by the thousands that, while perhaps not native, do well in the area.

Everyone told Shawn, "Oh you HAVE to go to the Natural Gardener!" and so we made the trek from our far northwest Austin home to the Natural Gardener just west of the Y in Oakhill which is on the far southwest part of Austin.

The Natural Gardener has everything from bag your own soils/compost to ceramic pots to one of the biggest and widest selections of plants I have ever seen. And of course, as mentioned above, the Natural Gardener is the purveyor of everything natural in gardening (including companion planting - such as plant roses at the end of your grapevine rows because roses will get the same diseases as the grapes, only sooner - that way you don't have to constantly be spraying your grapevines, you can wait until the roses show damage).

When you go to the Natural Gardener, be sure to check out the inside area as that's where all the seeds, bird supplies, and garden gifts are located. Also, you should walk around the grounds to see the demonstration gardens as well as visit all the farm animals.

P.S. I just saw that 7 Austin Local Independent Nurseries are offering giveaways through the following blogs (deadline to enter is 10/26 11:59 pm central time):

Sharing Nature’s Garden: $50 gift certificate from Emerald Garden

J Peterson Garden Design: $50 gift certificate from The Great Outdoors

Go Away, I’m Gardening!: $100 gift certificate from Sunshine Landscape & Garden Center

Great Stems: $50 gift certificate from Hill Country Water Gardens & Nursery

The Whimsical Gardener: $25 gift certificate from It’s About Thyme

Rock Rose: $50 gift certificate from Shoal Creek Nursery

Growing Optimism: $25 gift certificate from The Natural Gardener

Digging: TWO prizes to two different winners: a $100 gift certificate & a Fall Power Package (valued at $50) from Barton Springs Nursery,

Veggie Plant Winners (Round 3)

Summary:

Black Krim (2 plants) - 5 tomatoes total, 3 ruined by squirrels or birds.
Roma (2 plants) - 4 tomatoes total, 1 ruined by blossom end rot.
Crookneck Squash - 3 squash total, 2 eaten by squirrels, 1 picked too late to eat.
Red LaSoda Potatoes (5 planted) - 10 potatoes
White Kennebec Potatoes (4 planted) - 2 potatoes
Sweet Potato - 0 thus far
Watermelon - 1 thus far - I had 3, one was eaten by possums, the other I just picked, and the third one is still on the vine.
Eggplant - 3 total - the first one fell off the plant so I was going to use it, but forgot about it until it was soft. The other 2 were used in Pasta Alla Norma (which I still have leftovers of...)
Cayenne Pepper - 4
Thai Red Demon Pepper - 50 peppers total, 2 eaten by squirrels/birds, 2 given to Linda Lehmusvirta. Plus, more on the way.
Jalapeno Pepper - 15 peppers (though 10 of those are tiny and green and have no heat at all - the plant stem just started drying up so I pulled the peppers off of that stem, but the other 2 stems are fine), plus more on the way.

Don't worry - I saved seed from the Thai Pepper - this is the most prolific it's ever been...

Rain

Oh my goodness, could it be? Could it really be rain?! Why yes, I think it is rain!

0.25" on 10/6
0.5" on 10/8
0.75" on 10/8 (during the day)
2.75" on 10/9

FINALLY

Though if you look in my bucket on the deck, it looks like we got a lot more than 4.25" over the last couple of days...

And I had to go pull the big watermelon for fear that all the water would make it split.

Support Your Independent Nursery Month: Barton Springs

I must admit, I don't normally shop at Barton Springs Nursery. It has nothing to do with the fact that it's far from my house - it actually has more to do with the fact that I didn't know it existed until last year. (I visit the Natural Gardener with about the same frequency - which is to say - when I'm looking for something specific).

The nursery is awesome insomuch as they grow their own plants on the premises (while I can't say that all independently owned nurseries grow their plants on the premises, I can safely say that the big box stores do not). This might explain the reason why the few plants I have bought from BSN are still alive while the ones I have bought from the big box stores are not.

BSN has recently gotten their shipment of fall planting bulbs (fall planting means spring blooming) as well as new cement planters/garden decoratives and pottery. So hurry on down and give 'em a gander.

Barton Springs Nursery is located at 3601 Bee Caves Road and can be found online at BartonSpringsNursery.net

Paths

Remember back in the day when I said I volunteered to help my in laws with their back yard area? The area that is almost entirely in the shade? Where the deer play (and apparently raise their young)?

Yeah, we finally started on that the other weekend. By the time my mother in law had decided she wanted to do something and had bought the patio pavers, it was too hot to really bother doing anything so the project was put on hold. Plus she kept saying she didn't know what to do - she's not a designer (not that I am - I mean come on, most of you have seen my yard). But, as with all things, it's easier to see potential in other people's yards - with the added benefit that if it looks like crap when it's done, it's not your yard.

Now then, as I had mentioned before, she wanted to re-sod most of the yard instead of going with native plants and I had THOUGHT I had convinced her to use plants instead of grass. I was wrong. She did go out and buy grass seed (something that's supposed to grow in the shade, but it's not St. Augustine). They spread it out and dutifully watered it. It didn't take. There are little patchy clumps near the edge of the shade area, but the rest of the area is bare. So she agreed to try plants instead of sod.

Of course she said she couldn't do plants because she doesn't know how to design a landscape, so I drew up a plan (I mean it's just like the design a go-go's right?). She saved it and it is now the plan of what we will be designing (even though it's not to scale, nor does it necessarily have accurate plants for the area - I didn't have my books with me so I had to go off of memory of what grows in the shade and is deer resistant). The biggest problem thus far is that the neighbor's tree is dropping all it's leaves, plus my father in law pruned their trees so now areas get more sun than they used to. The worst area is in the area that I had marked as "Turk's Cap". (good thing Turks Cap grows in the sun AND shade)

So the other day we (my mother in law and I) went out and layed rocks out at a 2' interval (due to lack of enough rocks) to mark where the patio should be, where the shredded bark paths should be, and where the planting beds would be.

The toughest part was getting my MIL to understand that if she didn't like where a rock was (as in it made the bed too weird of a shape, or the path wasn't wide enough), she was, indeed, allowed to move the rock to a more appropriate place. After we were finished I insisted that we "walk the yard using the paths" just to make sure the feel was okay. She thought it was an unnecessary step. Until we were doing it and decided that one of the paths should veer to the left instead of right. Guess what? It's a lot easier to move a few rocks than it is to move shredded bark and planted plants.

Since I know we'll have to go back up there at some point in the near future to put gutter guards on the house, I'm guessing we'll be laying more rock and laying the patio itself. Guess I'd better start lifting weights again...

And I haven't even started on the projects I have for my yard yet (hell strip, front berm, side yard, and planting trees). Oh yes, I have plans, but they'll probably take at least 5 years to implement.

Veggie Plant Winners (take 2)

Rather than provide an update in the style I normally do, I feel that a summary is warranted.

Black Krim (2 plants) - 5 tomatoes total, 3 ruined by squirrels or birds.
Roma (2 plants) - 4 tomatoes total, 1 ruined by blossom end rot.
Crookneck Squash - 3 squash total, 2 eaten by squirrels, 1 picked too late to eat.
Red LaSoda Potatoes (5 planted) - 10 potatoes
White Kennebec Potatoes (4 planted) - 2 potatoes
Sweet Potato - 0 thus far
Watermelon - 0 thus far - I had 3, one was eaten by possums, the other two are still on the vine.
Eggplant - 1 thus far - there are another 2 waiting for me to pick them.
Cayenne Pepper - 4
Thai Red Demon Pepper - 50 peppers total, 2 eaten by squirrels/birds, 2 given to Linda Lehmusvirta. Plus, more on the way.
Jalapeno Pepper - 5 peppers, plus more on the way.

Obviously the winner is still the Thai Pepper. But then, at this point, I don't think anything is going to beat it...