12.05.09

Playing catch up on the blog. It’s late January, 2010, and I’m filling in captions and notes for draft entries for months past. Cheers!



We had a nasty, early freeze. I didn't get all of my plants covered in time. I had fully planned to, and then failed. These following images include plant carnage, and may not be suitable for all viewers. Discretion is advised.

Froze globe basil...

Froze zinnias...

Rags thrown over squash and gourds, to no avail. Insert sad face here.

Oh, the carnage. So, so, SOOO sad.

I found half a dozen or so pumpkins and acorn squash as I sifted through the freeze-damaged vines.

Acorn squash...

Some white mini pumpkins...

I took all of my pumpkins and squash to Houston for Thanksgiving and we used them for centerpieces. Once back home in Austin, I let them ripen more in the kitchen. Eventually they got carved, seeded, roasted and pureed and made into some awesome muffins.

This was my sun-gold cherry tomato bush. Man, those things were delicious. I hated seeing this thing die.

Yep, you guessed it! This is THE bed. Since it's somehow finding its way into every post, I'm going to start hiding weird things in it. The first person who posts a comment to the blog identifying that week's hidden object by the deadline (I'll put it in the post) will win a handful of what ever is in season!

My "Jack-O-Lantern" vine, decimated. But the pumpkin didn't die!

Thank goodness for cold weather veggies! My brassicas did great.

As did most of my herbs.

My "Caprese" bed didn't fare as well, but I wasn't thinking it would. I needed the freeze damage to encourage me to clean out the bolted basils and the hopeless 'maters and peppers and put in something that would do better in the cold.

The wilted marigolds were heartbreaking. What was a firey mound of orange and yellow just a few days before turned into a sad puddle of deadness.

I had tried to use these army green frost covers, but they weren't all that helpful. I thought these covers were supposed to insulate, not just keep frost from touching plants. Apparently, I misunderstood the packaging.

Blobby frost cover messiness.

More of same.

I'm sure you get the picture, but I'm still not going to edit!

Guess!

I do have a point here eventually... wait for it.

Ahhhhh, yesss! My PVC biodomes! Just some cheap electrical (or plumbing - now I can't remember) pipe, some nuts and bolts and VOILA! After experimenting with the pole length and finding what would cross from corner to corner without flipping out of place or creating a huge amount of space between the tallest plant and the frame, I cut all of the poles to length. Ten beds, two poles per bed. I think the measurement I used was 7'. I bolted two poles together making sure the nut was on the bottom of the "X" when installed so as not to rip my frost cover.

I thought I was going to have to use bracing hardware to keep the frames in place, but they are actually VERY snugly installed with just the tension of the PVC against the wood. Easy-peasey to pop in or take out as needed.

Draping blankets over the frames prevents crushing delicate plants, as well as forms a pocket of insulating air in the center.

I was VERY happy with these. My original plan was to use them to hold up the green frost cloth for future cold snaps, and if necessary, layer warmer blankets on top. I eventually found a better product though, and the green frost covers got relegated to the back yard plants. Pics of and info on the better product to come.

11.21.09

Playing catch up on the blog. It’s late January, 2010, and I’m filling in captions and notes for draft entries for months past. Cheers!

This is one of my white mini-pumpkins. The variety has the cutest name, something like "Spooktacular" or something like that. I'll have to check my seed collection. This little guy got about as big as a baby's head. (What?! I couldn't think of a sport with a ball that was the right size! Yeesh.)

Lovely squash blossoms, and a mini orange pumpkin that some garden invader nommed. I wanted to fry up those blossoms, but wasn't sure if all squash flowers are edible, or just particular varieties. Oh well, there's always next year!

Another baby pumpkin. They're just so cute! Spoiler alert - I ended up having to harvest all of my squash early due to an early freeze. The ones I had to harvest green eventually (as in, 3-4 weeks later) turned orange. I roasted them up and put them through a blender and used them to make dynamite pumpkin muffins!

I just love elfin thyme. I love the fragrance, the way it creeps so low to the ground, its hardiness and its flavor. This particular picture makes me think some kind of garden gnome is going to peek its red-capped head out of the edge of the pic.

Lavendar! My brother said the NICEST thing to me one day. He had come over and I was showing him the new stuff in the garden, and he said, "It SMELLS good here". That was such a huge compliment! I think it was the lavendar he was smelling.

This was a volunteer amaranthus. It ended up freezing to death, but I'm hoping that more will pop up in Spring 2010. They're so gorgeous.

This has become a running joke for me. I seem to take lots of pictures of this particular bed. Yes, that's chard, and lettuce, and spinach, and pennyroyal, and carrots, and, um.... bush beans... And here you can see one of my garden stakes that was made before I decided on the more modest height of HALF of a coat hanger. I'll eventually get this bad boy shortened... Not high on the priority list.

"RADISH, cherry belle"

Kohlrabi. It's delicious! I hadn't ever had it before growing these babies from seed. It's crisp and sweet, sort of apple-y and a little tangy/spicy, like a radish. I shredded it into a salad and loved it.

A purple one! Can't wait to eat it. Yummy!

Installing Path Numba Three. I had had a layer of black plastic trash bags pinned down through the summer and they did a great job of cooking the weeds and compacting the ground. Which I then had to dig up, but whatever...

Digging out 3 inches of soil. (Don't fret, it didn't go in the trash. I moved it to the backyard, into a new flower bed. This is surprisingly decent topsoil - at least the top few inches.)

See, see! I do the work. I do it. Me!

All dug up and raked free of loose weeds and roots. Getting ready to tamp it.

Tamping. And YUP, it's EXACTLY as fun as it looks. Especially when you hit your toe!

Weedcloth.





DE. Diatomaceous Earth.

Double recycled (was the haunted pirate ship in cubicleville) cardboard and more DE.

And mulch.

Stomping the mulch. Stomp, stomp, STOMP!

And finally, a little water to help it all matt together. Done!

Oh, and a new measurement for my one and only "Jack-O-Lantern" pumpkin. Gettin' bigger every day!

11.15.09

Playing catch up on the blog. It’s late January, 2010, and I’m filling in captions and notes for draft entries for months past. Cheers!

These marigolds look so awesome! They just pour over the sides of the bright blue lumber and really stand out.

I think I finally have my plant stake design down. No need to make the ends of the stakes into spiral and try to corkscrew it into the soil. Straight does the trick way better. I'm using metal roof flashing, cutting it into rectangles and rounding off the corners. I have a couple sets of steel alphabet die stamps, and I hammer in the plant names. Finally, I use a black paint pen to darken the punched letters. Unwinding a coat hanger and cutting it in half gives the ideal length of wire. There's enough to stab it into the ground sufficiently deep for it to be stable, a few inches at the top to coil into a circle to hang the tag on, and about 18" of gently swaying stake. I HATE windchimes with a passion, but these swinging softly in the breeze make a lovely, whispy metallic sound.

This is the SINGLE "Jack-o-lantern" pumpkin that made it to full size. I got this planted late, too, because I had a couple of precious watermelons still on the vine that I was holding out for. Alas, the "fuzzy lizard" got one, and the other just disappeared. I'm not really sure what happened to it, but I'm fairly certain that whatever it was, it was an event of the natural world ("fuzzy lizard", water-induced rot), and not an abduction.

11.12.09

Pics of the squash and gourd vines at their most lush. I got them planted a little late in the season, unfortunately. Next year I'll remember to dig up the cantaloupes when they begin to diminish in quality instead of trying to hang onto them. I'll get my winter squash planted a little earlier that way. (And I just love that smudge of hot pink and electric orange up in the corner there!)

Not a great picture, but we already know I can't edit to save my life. Just checkin' out the front of the house in its full glory.

11.01.09

Um... yeah, just more pics. I just love those apricot roses. Sighhhh...