Foliage Followup March 2014

On the 16th of every month, Pam at Digging hosts Foliage Followup - a time for all of us to showcase the foliage in our yard that holds the design together.

This time, my iris bed looks a little sad because of the stupid cold weather which fried the iris blooms, so the best looking foliage I have in my yard is the Mull-Shay bed.  The Betony (which is covered by the pile of leaves) was doing so well, but again, the stupid cold snap fried it.  The yarrow (forefront), the liriope (the grassy stuff), and the cast iron plant (the leafy stuff) all sailed through the freeze with flying colors.

March Bloom Day 2014

Even with the terribly nasty weather (which fried my iris blooms, and the bush germander blooms - BOOOOOO!!!), some things are still blooming.

These things, naturally, are weeds.  The henbit is going crazy right now in my yard.  And that's fine - the nectar-drinking insects appreciate it, and as long as I get it removed before it goes to seed, it's not a big deal.  I've also got some tiny-flowered itty bitty plant that's blooming and is ALL over my hell strip - I really need to figure out what it is so I can determine if it's friend or foe.

I do have 2 other plants that are blooming now - Baby Blue Eyes and Verbena.

Baby Blue Eyes

Verbena

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Garden for hosting bloom day on the 15th of each month.

Mulish & Co

On the day of the Sunshine Community Garden Sale, I hung out at Roberta's house for a little while afterwards in order to get some photos of her chickens for my sister who bailed on us at the last minute (and I had been so excited about her meeting Roberta and seeing all the chickens).

The morning of the sale, Roberta had some delicious mushroom and asparagus quiche as well as some cranberry scones.  Jiminny Crickets, I'm going to be having dreams of that food - Roberta is an AMAZING cook.

Arrow and Lily were the welcoming crew (as they always are), Baby came by later, but opted not to follow us outside for the photo op.  Michael had gone for a run so he wasn't around for the photo op, either.

Lily - aka Beagle

Arrow - aka the dog most likely to be able to convince my husband we need a dog.

Chicken

Roberta with Chicken

Chicken

Guinea - La Bete

Chicken.  Rooster, actually - Agnew

Freezer Box: Round Eleven Billionty

Thundersleet.

That is all.

Sunshine Community Garden Sale

The first Saturday of each March, the Sunshine Community Garden has a fundraiser sale.  They sell 4" pots of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and herbs for $2 a pop. 

I went with my friend and fellow garden blogger, Roberta.  My sister (whom you can see in my March Wide Angles Post) was supposed to go with us, but bailed the night before because she didn't want to get up at 7 in the morning.  To be fair, she only was going to have to get up that early because she was staying with my parents in Georgetown and they wanted to have breakfast together at Kerbey Lane before the sale.

Anyway, the sale - we arrived probably around 10am, it was a relatively warm day, albeit muggy and yet windy.  By the time we arrived, there was only a line to go into the herb shed

But since we were there for the big guns (aka tomatoes), we bypassed the herbs.

The tomato tent.  They must have made an extra big order or tomatoes this year because there were still PLENTY available by the time we got there.

I managed to not buy any peppers - and that's mostly only because I have a gazillion that I dug up in the fall and have managed to keep them alive over the winter so I'll be transplanting them after this crazy cold snap.  After picking up our tomatoes, peppers and eggplants (and of course buying twice the tomatoes that we actually have room for), we were happy and content -

 

And then we decided to go look at some of the gardens.  One of the plots has a 3-year-old Collard Greens plant which has a trunk as thick as my arm - like seriously, that's impressive man!

 

My purchases:

 

Tomato "Blue Berries":  Specialty - Very dark purple color. At maturity they turn deep red where the fruit was shaded and almost black where it's been in full sun. Elongated clusters that look beautiful. Indeterminate. 75 days.

Tomato "Cherokee Purple": Heirloom - Dusky rose, purple fruit, large 10-12 oz, heavy producer. Very popular tomato from Tennessee. Sweet rich flavor. Indeterminate. 80 days. [some day I'll try to grow both Black Krim and Cherokee Purple at the same time so I can do taste tests]

Tomato "Chico III": Paste - Very early, oblong tomato developed in California. Wonderful disease resistance. Many consider this to be superior to Roma, as it is much earlier and a touch sweeter. Determinate. 70 days.

Tomato "Dwarf Arctic Rose":  Container - A 2012 release by the Dwarf Tomato Project. Topping out at about 3 feet, this is the shortest of the project releases to date. Determinate. 70 days.

Tomato "Japanese Black Trifele":  Heirloom - Potato leaf foliage. Black, pear-shaped tomato that looks like a little eggplant on the vine. It's a commercially grown tomato in Russia. Complex, rich sweet flavor. Determinate. 80 days.

Eggplant "Fairy Tale":  Early harvests of elongated lavender fruit with white stripes. Best picked when about 4X1 3/4 inches while the skin is still shiny. Plants are ideal for containers. 50 days.

Eggplant "Machiaw":  Pale lavender skin, 9-12" long. Mild tasting white flesh. 65 days. 

March Wide Angles

A few days late, but better late than never, right?  [this is also my reasoning behind my Florida posts - we went to 3 botanical gardens while we were there and I took a bunch of photos, but I also, obviously, haven't posted about them] [also, that trip was in October.  So timing, I am on top of it]

At the beginning of each month, we join Heather at Xericstyle in posting wide angle photos of our yards.

Of course, these photos were taken before the great freeze of March Aught 14.

First the photo from the neighbor's yard

Next, the closer view - also, that's my sister you see, she was visiting from Colorado - of course it wasn't much warmer here for part of the week

On to the side yard where you can just make out the first of 3 irises that bloomed before this last freeze, unfortunately, there were another 3 that were going to bloom, but not now...oh well, c'est la vie.

Then onto the view from the backdoor

 

March World Photo