2.21.10

The early months of spring are always hard to wait out. Things look so bare! Last winter (2008, not 2009), I was able to get into the yard to cover everything when we were expecting a freeze. So, at this time last spring (2009), there was a lot of life and color in the yard. This winter (2009), I missed my mark for the very first cold snap, and it was a hard one. After that I sort of figured everything was a loss and focused on the front yard. Now I'm kicking myself. Fingers crossed that more things wake up, SOON! Here's sort of an "around the world" of the backyard, starting with the beds near the house and going counter-clockwise...

Oh, before I start, Angie and Chris are making their way back home to Alaska via Austin, so their shining faces made it into this entry as well! Hiya, Chris and Angie!

Not a lot going on here. All of the trumpet trees died, as did the geraniums, which I had been able to keep alive last winter and had woken up with a vengeance by this time last February. And the bulbines. And ice plant. Gah! But there ARE some lovely pansies that Chris and Angie helped me plant. Thanks, Chris and Angie!!

There's Angie, working hard to get her passport back. I mean, to help me pretty up the dormant beds...

Better view of the pansies, and you can see the weed-ridden "trash can bed" behind...

A pic Angie shared with me. I love seeing things through other people's perspectives. This is a hobby horse Trent surprised me with, having found it curbside in the 'hood, set out for bulk trash. Don't tell anyone!

I had had roses and rosemary and mandevilla and some other gorgeous things growing in all of these containers. Last year I pulled the roses and parked them up front, where they're doing great. The others all seem to have perished. I'll be putting more roses in, and hopefully get this area back in shape soon.

That fun, fuzzy green plant? That's a weed. Yeah. Those gangly, hard-to-see twigs? Dead plants. Yup.

Another fun pic from Angie. I need to set this pot full of puppies and kitties back into one of the beds. At least it'll add some color!

This is along the long back bed. This was a very cool hibiscus. I think it was three different varieties, braided together to form a little tree. Oh, I SO hope it comes back.

Hungry Hungry Hippo wants to know where all of my beautiful plants have got to!

More hibiscus and other things in the long back bed, looking quite dead.

Hiding our guests' passports until they have done enough back-breaking pansy planting.

Dead, dead, dead, and DEAD. I need to make time to get in there and cull the ick so the new growth can be seen.

It's so sad.

Chris, planting pansies. Yay, Chris!

Trent's Cowboys helmet. Love it! And some airplanes, and trucks, and ATVs. Very manly.

There's a skeletal fern, and a bunch of dead leaves. OMG. The carnage. Please, can't we fast forward to mid-Spring?

More pansies - the only things providing any color in the garden at all!

I think there's a little bit of green at the bottom of that feverfew. Right? Some green?

Ahhhh! Color!

Ryan's old Tonka truck. Love that thing! And a purple grass that isn't looking very purple. And an awesome mirrored bowling ball that my mom made. And some fairies looking a little worse for the wear...

Ahhhhh, more color!

A couple from Angie of the front yard. This is that omnipresent planter. Yup. Full of yumminess.

One of the brassica beds. For some reason, some of my brassicas did better than others. My kale and mustards and greens took off, as did my kohlrabe and beets. But my broccolis and cauliflowers and brussels sprouts never seemed to get anywhere. Better luck next year, eh?

Bye kids! It was an AWESOME coupla visits! You guys are welcome back anytime.

2.12.10

Sometimes it's good to take a break, else you risk burnin' out. Trent and I had been long anticipating a visit from some of his old friends, Chris and Angie. Hailing from Alaska, the were going on a tropical vacation and arranged to fly out of Austin so we could hang. That was AWESOME planning on their part! Yay Angie and Chris! So there's not a lot of gardening in here, but there's definitely some worthwhile stuff!

In preparation for their visit, I decided to make up some pumpkin muffins to have around the house for snacking. My fall pumpkins lasted a good long time, so I finally decided to roast them up and prep them for baking.

Beautifully roasted, creamy and smooth and scrapes out with a spoon. Yummy.

Mashed, in a bowl, waiting to become muffins. Which they did. And they were wonderful. But didn't last long enough for me to take pics.

This is Flip Happy Crepes. If you're in Austin and you have never been here, you MUST go. Go early, 'cause they make these crepes individually and by hand, so if you get there at "opening time", there's already a line. We got there super early with a thermos of coffee and hung out. Drooling.

My handsome man and Chris, Angie's handsome man. Doing some manly ordering of foodstuffs for their womenses.

I think Chris had "the Cuban", which was my all-star favorite before I gave up meat. Yes, it still makes me drool, but I had some lovely, vegetarian concotion and was perfectly happy!

After some shopping on SoCo, we decided to take a tour of UT. UT is actually a gorgeous campus, even if it is notorious for cannibalizing its buildings since expansion is difficult. Chris is an engineer, so he got to look at some building activities, and I had fun reminiscing about my alma mater.

The old turtle pond is still there, and still chock-a-block full of turtles. Yay, turtles!!

Our tour took us by a slew of AMAZING murals done by graffitti artist Federico A. I know his last name, but I can't spell it, and I have @#$% VISTA so it's not so easy to have two browsers open at the same time. I'll update later with his full name. Check his stuff out - it's STUNNING. I love his Lady of Guadalupe. It would be dreamy to have it done on a section of our backyard fencing...

We stopped for adult bevvies and snackies at Spider House, one of my all-time favorite places. The outdoor eating area is just dreamy. It's full of things that inspire me with ideas for my own gardens. A claw-foot bathtub fountain, lots of crazy seating, old signage, etc, etc. Love it.

After snackies at Spider House, we moseyed on to the Lang Homestead. I harvested some greems to use in the night's white bean chili.

Mmmmmmm - white bean chili. Though I guess it's more of a veggie stew, as I didn't use any spicy flavors. LOTS of flavors, but none with heat. Served it up with cornbread and lots of wine. Angie helped cook! Yah, Angie!

Our menfolk, all tuckered out. Aren't they cute?! And there are the doglettes!

There's Angie, enjoying a pumpkin muffin. Yay, pumpkin muffins!! She and Chris are headed out to their tropical adventure. We'll see them again next weekend!

The END!

2.7.10

My soaker hose is doing a little too much soaking. So I'm going to patch it. Yes, it would be cheaper to replace it, but that would mean I would have to take it out of the bed, and now it's all wound up around a million plants! So instead, I'll spend way more than a new hose costs in repair parts and bandaids for the inevitable busted fingers. Grrr!

Step 1: Turn on soaker. Cleverly point the screw driver and the scissors toward the hose, on each side of the leak.

Step 2: Run back to the spigot and turn water off. Run back to the hose and cut it as indicated by the cleverly used screwdriver and scissors.

Step 3: Tools of the trade. A 1/2" ...eh, repair-er thingy and two clamps. Hey, Guess What Home Depot?! When I ask for 1/2", I really do MEAN 1/2". Stop trying to sell me the damn 3/4" hose repair kits, because they don't fit on 1/2" soakers!!

Step 4: Slide the loosened clamps onto each side of the hose.

Step 5: Insert the plastic thingy.

Step 6: Slide clamps toward center and tighten. Be sure to lose your grip on the tiny wet clamps and scrape your fingers all to hell. Several times.

Onions, buttercrunch lettuce, rogue arugula, and garlic. This arugula planted itself.



Radishes. Yeah. Not much going on here.







Cleaned the heck out of this bed and put down a new layer of mulch. And Trent found me that cool bowling pin. It's HEAVY! Good for whackin' moles!

Trying to get ahead of that nasty, weedy grass. I went through this entire bed with a fine toothed comb to get out every inch of grass and root that I could. Hopefully this'll help keep that stuff from getting such a chokehold on this bed later this year. Fingers crossed! Also, planted 5 new roses right by the street in the hopes that once they're grown, people will think twice about walking through this bed. Yes, I KNOW this is city property, but still, it's planted to the hilt! Stop walking on it all! Yeesh!

Brassica Bed Numbah TWO! Raddichio and red lettuces and beet and endive, etc, etc, etc!

Onions, Mibuna, more beets, French Sorrel...

Lots herb. The legal kind!

Brassica Bed Numbah ONE! Yeah, I flipped 'em on you. Kale, kohlrabe, and a buncha other stuff!

Weeds, an artichoke (dead center), and the once-hot-pink-now-pale-pink snakie from Toy Joy. To scare all the birds. And, um. Other things.

A better pic of the artichoke. A couple of those other green things are ornamentals that I'll move to the sidewalk bed later this spring.

This is that same ol' bed that I always take pictures of for no reason. Nothing hidden in it. Look at the arugula in the front row, second from the right. Respectable, but manageable, right? Just wait a few more weeks... Arugula does REALLY well in my garden. Too well.

Strawberries and mint - a good combination for a refreshing dessert, but not so much to plant together. Yes, I know how invasive mint is. But I got cuttings of about 10 different varieties, and thought, "I'll just root them here, and move them before they take over". Looks like I didn't manage to get to it in time... The varieties I have include chocolate mint (mmmm, smells JUST like an Andes mint), orange mint, candy mint, pennyroyal, pineapple mint, sweet pear mint, spearmint... I'm going to have to dig this whole bed up and try to salvage cuttings of the mints, as well as the strawberries. I might even have to "solarize it" after I clean it out. That is, cover it in black plastic and let it cook all summer. I can't BELIEVE I was so naive about mint!

Rogue arugula, getting ready to take over the world!! Look how it OWNS those onions!

This is my potato bucket. I read about this method of growing potatoes where you plant them in a deep bucket, but in only a couple of inches of good soil - just enough to cover the potato bits. Once they begin to grow leaves/vines, you raise the soil level. Then the vine puts on more 'taters in the new layer of soil as it continues to grow skyward. So I'm going to try it out. There are red potatoes in here. I'm going to do another bucket with multi-colored French fingerlings.