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.