3.27.10

Went to another garden show with John and Joann and her mom. We met up with Tina and Benny at the show. This time I came prepared! I have two wagons that live in the back yard. Both are old, but one is waaaaay older than the other. The older of the two works GREAT! I've drilled holes in the bottom for drainage because it often serves as a planter, but the holes haven't rusted out or enlarged. Also, the wheels work fabulously. The other wagon is not so well off, but I didn't not know the degree of its short comings until we had already lugged it to the show. John and Joann have a truck, so they picked me and the two wagons up. I claimed dibbies on the older one (I didn't know what was to come, I SWEAR!) and let them use the other one. 'Cause at our last garden show, none of us had a wagon, so this time we would ALL have wagons.

As it turns out, the repair job I did on the gimpy wagon was not so good. It kept the wheels on, but only when they weren't turning. If you wanted to turn them, then the nut keeping the back left wheel on would work its way off every 100 yards or so. I just happened to see it happen the first time, and caught the nut before it fell off. And then we knew that we needed to keep an eye on it. We were halfway between parking and the event gates when this happened, and no one particularly wanted to take the wagon back. Besides, we were going to NEED it. We were going to FILL IT UP. So on we trudged.

At the end of the event, none of us had bought much of anything at all. The one, working wagon would have been plenty to carry our collective booty and have room to spare. And then we had to drag the damn thing back to the parking area. OMG. J&J, you guys are the bestest kinds of friends to see the humor in this and not just throw my old wagon right into Zilker Creek.

Not sure what this tree is. Going to venture, a peach. For some reason, it was flowering like CRAZY at the pruning locations. It looked like some kind of fungus. Some kind of pink, soft, frothy, lovely fungus. More pics below...

Pom poms!

When I got home, I felt a nap coming on. So, instead of getting ambitious, I picked something a little easier. Easier in that I could sit on that cushy pad and stay in one place. This is the strawberry and mint bed that I've pissed and moaned so much about. I started clearing out the mint. It's not too hard, surprisingly. The mistake I made doing this first 1/3 of the cleaning was in removing the strawberries. I transplanted them to another bed, and they're having a little trouble. I think they'll come back, but I also think that for the remainder of this box, I'll work around the strawberries. Most of them are already blooming and producing!

In shock. But they'll come back after a long drink of water. And I need to be vigilant about the doodle bugs. Gah, I hate those!

More of the same. I put them in two patches, in the bed on the side of the driveway. They're planted with roses (they're related) and garlic (are supposed to LOVE being planted with garlic) so they should do well. Eventually.

3.26.10

Did lots of stuff today... In no particular order:

Took stock of each bed. Pulled the mibuna from this one - it had bolted and was way past its prime. I mixed the leaves from the pulled plants in with some salad greens. They were tasty - sort of like clover. Bitter and metallic, but somehow not unpleasant. Maybe I'm biased, since I grew them. I read that description, and it doesn't sound like something I'd want to eat. The onions and French sorrel stayed put.

Pulled the bolted brassicas out of this bed, and the weeds. Forgot to take "afters" of this bed and the one above.

Started giving heavy thought to this path. Believe it or not, in amongst these god awful weeds are 4 blackberry plants. Plans include pulling the blackberries out temporarily, digging up the weeds and 3" of topsoil, putting down pavers, and replacing the b.berries in containers. I'll need to construct some vine trellises, and I *think* I can make one of them double as a bottle tree. New planters for watermelon vines will go between the container planted berries. Need to get crackin'!!

Before.

After. This is as far as I got. It wasn't hard popping the weeds out, but I had such a jumble of other projects in my head, that I moved on... to....

The ARUGULA. I have mentioned before that it grows too well in my beds. In the image above, the massive green thing with all of the white flowers is a single planted arugula, and all if its wild-sown babies. Trollop.

This is the other "rogue" arugula I've mentioned before. I said it would get worse. I warned you! I did. For goodness sake. At least this one had the decency to plant itself in one of my beds.

Whereas this one, circled in yellow, just sprung up willy-nilly at the edge of the yard. All by itself. There were actually several of these, but I gave some to Tina. I hate letting my plants/crops go to waste, but when they're as prolific as this, it's hard to use them up. And there you go kids, a lesson in micro-ag.

Here's the "after" showing all 3 areas trimmed back or pulled out. If I'm not careful, this one remaining plant could get all kinds of out of control again.

Herbs are doin' well.

Beans are starting to sprout. The birds ended up snacking on some of the new shoots, but that's ok. I'll replant, and that'll give me staggered harvests. I'll also park my bird-cage over top of this. The bees can get in to pollinate, but the birds can't get in to steal.

Weeds and an artichoke in the middle. And the bead-thingies my mom and I made when she visited. She was so nice - she gave me hers, so I have 2! So pretty! But I thought I already weeded around this artichoke. Hmmm...

Now for the sidewalk bed. The scraggly, branchy thing in the upper left corner is my rock rose. I'm hoping it'll come back. I moved it and that should have been ok, but I didn't realise that the roots weren't well covered for over a week after the move. Mom says she thinks the branches are still green at the base, so I'm hoping for new life. And yes, I did improve the root/soil situation. Fingers crossed.

There is this GNARLY grassy-weedy devil thing trying to take over this sidewalk bed (circled in yellow). It bested me last summer, and I've posted about digging up all vestiges of it several times already in Winter 2009 and Spring 2010. Nancy suggested it might be "Bahia" grass? I googled that, and it looks similar enought that it might be, and different enough that it might now. Hmph. Anywhoo, here it is again, so here I go again, digging it out. GAH!




Combed the ENTIRE bed for it. But it'll come back, no doubt. Grrr...

My salvia is coming back. A few weeks ago, it was looking like a bunch of sad, sad sticks. Now it's bright green and about ready to send up flower stalks. (It's in the lower left corner of this pic.)

Time for lunch. Aren't these the cartooniest carrots you've ever seen? I gobbled one up in a huge salad, and saved the other for another day.

This bouquet is made with bolted lettuce and its flowers. And apples.

3.6.10

My friend Joann invited me to join her and her hubby and some friends at a garden show. Man, o man, this one is going on my calendar for the future. It was sooo fun. I didn't really know this at the time, but you have to be strategic about this show. For one, bring something with wheels. Next year, my antique wagon is coming with! For two, print out, study, and MARK the list of plants BEFORE getting to the show. They are VERY organized. There is a tent for 'maters ONLY, one or two for other veggies, one for herbs, and maybe one for ornamentals. There are a few garden-doodad vendors too. But the serious business is the 'maters and veggies. People have their lists in hand and they RUN to the tents that they need to shop at and race through, grabbing all of their "must haves". People are very nice, but you WILL catch an elbow or get your toes run over. Just take it in stride and grab your chosen items. If you're smart, you'll team up with friends and divide and conquer, with one person going to the 'mater tent and getting everyone's, and some one else in the group going to herbs and doing the same, etc, etc. You can't chat that way, but belive me, there was no time for chatting in the tents. It was a blast! Look at my face - that's JOY!

And I have to say, I loved meeting Tina and Benney. They are "Garden People" too, so now I have more peeps to talk shop with. Don't know how I didn't end up with a pic of Tina and Joann. Insert sad face here.

John and Benney looking oh-so-silly. I mean handsome. Handsome.

Just a super fun picture of the hustle and bustle. This is in front of the 'mater tent. People brought all manner of things to carry their treasures in. I LOOOVE the wheelbarrow. Wheelbarrows are such good things.

The line to the herbs! Behind the little group dead center, you can see the herb tent to the far left of the pic, and the line stretching all the way to the right and beyond! I managed to get into the tent before the line was too long, but I forgot one. I ran out to put my cardboard collection box down with John and Benney, then ran back and was going to try to sweet talk my way back in to grab one last thing, but at the last minute, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Everyone was waiting so patiently - I couldn't upset the peace like that.

Me and my new plants. Some 'maters, an eggplant, and herbs. No peppers this time.

The show was at a community garden, so I took some pics here and there. Raised beds like mine. Over flowing, like mine. And with weeds, like mine! Thank goodness I'm not the only one. (Yes, I know, they happen, but I always feel like such a bad garden-tender when they get out of control. )

Isn't this guy gorgeous?! I couldn't afford him, but I was drooling over him the whole time. He was gone by the time I checked out though, so he went to a good home, I'm sure.

Piggies! Oink, oink!

I did splurge on Joe the Frog. Mr. Burpee is a little weather worn, and I'm trying to figure out if he can be salvaged. I couldn't be without a frog, and this guy's overalls killed me! He had a little girlfriend holding a daisy, but I couldn't justify getting the pair. Gah!

Once I got home, I decided to focus on this weed-ridden bed. It grew one of my watermelon vines last year, and now everything in it is undesirable.

Here, I've cleaned out everything but one little straggler.

I'm pretty sure this is a zinnia, likely one of the long stemmed, hot pink ones from last year. I moved it to the sidewalk bed. I love those flowers!

In its new home, right by the soaker and a pansy for company.

A busted string. What to do?! How will the plants EVER know where their "square foot" is?

Oh, maybe I can just splice in some new string. All fixed!

Planting a bunch of different beans here. The rich, black dirt there is worm castings from my worm bin. Can't wait to see how they do.

A little DE to keep the bugs at bay.

And markers...

FIN

3.5.10

Momma came in this week to help take my mind off some remodeling we were doing to the main bathroom in our house. The whole process was making me crazy, so mom came in and we did some yard work together. Having the company and the time in the yard did my brain some good!

Mom worked her fingers to the bone, weeding the perimeter of the front yard. She got out every last uninvited growing thing, and trimmed those things that needed it. That was awesome! Yay, mom!

While mom was weeding, I was planting new crops. Lots of cukes and okra and honey dew melon and cantaloupe and other yummy things. I'm watering the new seeds in, here.

I also made the plant markers for my new plantings. I got a little creative with these two!

Ha!

HaHa!

So cute!

After planting and placing the markers, I went to the areas mom had weeded and cut a gap into the soil right where it met the sidewalk so I could finally install the cedar edging. Mom's weeding really made this possible. She had already loosened up the soil, so I just had to push it back. Thanks, mom!

I have been so eager to get this edging in, but it always fell to the bottom of the list. It makes that area look so clean. It's rained several times since I got it all installed, and it's doing a fantastic job of keeping the soil from running onto the sidwalk after the rains. It looks so tidy now, even with the cute piles of dianthus spilling over the edging.

The other side of the yard. It looks soooo clean!