FITS and STARTS

This weekend: Community Garden Tour

2010-04-26T15:40:00.003-05:00

Yet another reason to love Austin: We have so many community gardens, there is a community gardens association and a tour planned for this weekend. I'm going to check out a few of these and maybe get a few new ideas ... here is the link:

http://communitygardensaustin.org/

Native Plant Gardening classes - week 2

2010-03-31T11:05:00.002-05:00

Last weekend was part 2 of the native plant gardening certificate I'm taking at the Wildflower Center. Oh how I enjoyed the improved weather! And cool to go back there each week at the beginning of spring to see how their gardens are changing day by day. I particularly enjoyed the class on plant installation: I learned a lot of tips for planting trees (I wish I hadn't just planted 3 trees, but aside from not watering them enough - they suggest literally "floating" the tree in by filling up the hole with water multiple times while you are planting it to saturate all the soil around it - I think I did OK and my trees will survive...) Also I think I'll be using more crushed granite as mulch and to mix in with my thick soil for flowerbeds ... all our native plants (esp the wildflowers) seem to like it and while my soil is generally pretty good blackland prairie stuff, it doesn't have the best drainage.

As a side note, its kinda challenging for me to switch back and forth between vegetable gardening and native plant gardening. They pretty much need the opposite approaches as far as I can tell. You add, add, add organic matter and water and baby the veggies, but that's the quickest way to kill most of our natives!!!

Here are a few more pictures of some of the gardens at the Center from last weekend.

Don't forget their spring plant sale is around the corner! (April 9 -11)

Giant Spiderwort, now in full bloom. I find this plant a little straggly but when planted in a large grouping like this its certainly showy in the spring! I think I will be trying it out.

Bluebonnets and I think the yellow flowers are cress-leaf groundsel (or butterweed) but I'm not sure. (And a dwarf Barbados cherry in the middle that hasn't leafed out yet.)

The demonstration gardens at the Center are so helpful with tons of identifying markers to help you figure out what you're looking at. It was also nice to see some of the flowers before they bloom to get an idea of what NOT to weed in my very weedy-looking wildflower patch (now whether you can remember or take good notes, that's up to you ...)

This is a garden dedicated to various botanists (Lindheimer gets the biggest square) which is cool but I took this picture because I like the design of all the metal planters terraced up with gravel in-between.... maybe I'll try to do this somewhere in our backyard, with a nice fountain at the top (Well, probably not anytime soon, but I can dream...)

Gregg Dalea in the foreground ... thinking about planting some of this since it makes a nice ground cover, though it prefers dry/good drainage conditions and goes pretty dormant in the winter so I'll have to find a good spot for it. (They have it all over the place at the Center)

C-A-T

2010-03-31T10:11:00.000-05:00

I thought this was a very cute idea ... my sister and nieces had the idea to spell out "CAT" with cat grass in their cat garden.

Happy things...

2010-03-26T18:59:00.000-05:00

1. Beautiful spring weather and having daylight after work to garden

2. Using compost I made myself for the first time in the vegetable garden

3. Surprise finds of things I tried (and failed) to grow from seed last spring that somehow produced a few plants (hidden under other plants)

Mint under artichoke plant

oregano under chard

4. Tons of earthworms in the soil!

5. Getting the garden cleaned up and reorganized and watering in a few newly planted herbs and tomatoes!

before

After

An excellent reason to plant milkweed...

2010-03-22T09:24:00.000-05:00

(photo Renee Studebaker/2008)

By Bill Hanna Fort Worth Star-Telegram Published: 2:48 a.m. Saturday, March 20, 2010

Monarch butterflies, hit hard by storms at their winter home in Mexico, have dwindled to their lowest population levels in decades as they return to Texas on their springtime flight back to the U.S. and Canada.
The monarch loss is estimated at 50 to 60 percent and means that the breeding population flying north is expected to be the smallest since the Mexican overwintering colonies were discovered in 1975, said Chip Taylor, a professor of entomology and director of Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas.
"I think it is very clear that the butterflies lost more than half of the population," Taylor said. "I'm hoping it wasn't as high as 70 or 80 percent."
The butterfly colonies in the Mexican state of Michoacán were hit by torrential rainfall and mudslides in early February that killed at least 40 people and left thousands homeless.
The monarch population was already unusually low because of unfavorable conditions in parts of the U.S. and Canada last summer.
As a result, Monarch Watch is starting a public awareness campaign to encourage gardeners, farmers and transportation officials to plant milkweed. The plant is a lifeline for monarchs as they travel.
"It's not just the backyard garden," Taylor said. "We're hoping to encourage changes in roadside management practices, how public lands are managed and how people are managing what they would call nonproductive land or marginal land that they might own."
A wet fall and winter across Texas should help provide plenty of food to aid the monarchs' recovery. Gardeners without milkweed now probably don't have time to help this spring, but they can provide a big boost this fall.
While flying through Texas during the fall migration, the butterflies obtain up to 70 percent of the food they need to survive the Mexican winter, said Gail Manning, an entomologist with the Fort Worth Botanic Garden.
There have already been sightings this week as far north as Austin and San Antonio, according to the Web site Journey North.
It will take several years at least for the monarchs to recover from their losses. And researchers are still trying to understand these sudden drops.
"Is there a cycle to the population?" Manning said. "We're still not sure if it is an abnormality to have these crashes or something nature has coped with for years."

Week 1 of the Native Plant Gardening Certificate

2010-03-20T18:16:00.000-05:00

Aside from SxSW (ha! that was kind of sarcastic), one of my favorite things about living in Austin is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I've been a member for several years and finally signed up for some of their classes. In fact, I went crazy and signed up for their 6-class (3 full Saturdays worth) Native Plant Gardening Certificate. Today we covered the basics of design and selecting native plants. Though it was pretty basic stuff, I actually learned quite a lot and it gave me a nice, full day to think about plants and gardening (a luxury in my book!) Here are a few pictures and thoughts from today ...

FYI - These classes are offered through UT informal classes now, which you may have heard will cease to exist at the end of this year. However, I heard today that the Center WILL CONTINUE offering classes. You will just register directly through them. Also, the series I'm taking now will be offered again starting May 15. May be a nicer time to see all the plants in bloom. Though I enjoyed studying the plants in their more winter/dormant and early spring blooming forms and thinking about which plants transition/overlap this time of year (even though it was freezing!) It's also nice to see some of their demonstration gardens at the tail end of the winter just to know what they look like.

I took this photo for the design - the path, limestone edging, and layers of plant sizes and textures. Plus I love the aqueduct-like gutter and the bird sculpture

I just thought this was brilliant - using chimney flues for planters!

Doesn't look like much, but this is a large barbados cherry. I planted some teeny tiny ones in front of our house last year. I wonder how long they will take to get this big??

Giant Spiderwort. I learned today that these are great to inter-plant with Turk's cap (of which I have) because they will bloom while the Turk's cap is dormant.

Wonderful, fragrant, amazing carolina jessamine.

I was happy to see a mature Mexican plum in bloom. I planted a very small one in our backyard last year that is also blooming ... again, wonder how long they take to get big? I was also happy to know that my cursory research on the tree was correct and it should continue to be happy where I planted it.

Garden Friend

2010-02-13T11:03:00.001-06:00

Been seeing a lot of hawks around the backyard recently. (This one flew away before I could get close enough for a good picture, so this is zoomed in.)

I'm pretty sure its a juvenile red-tailed hawk - my birder friends will correct me if I'm wrong. Crazy story about these is that James saw a hawk kill a screech owl a few weeks ago (early in the morning.) I had never heard about that before - maybe it was territorial or maybe just breakfast? In any case, they are beautiful creatures and I enjoy having them around.

Hope Springs Eternal

2010-02-13T10:50:00.001-06:00

The first hint of buds on trees lifted my spirits. We just planted a couple of new ones, excited to see their first spring!

Mexican Plum (planted 2 years ago)

Keiffer pear (planted 2 weeks ago)

Eve Pomegranate (planted 1 week ago)

Montezuma Cyprus (planted 3 years ago)

A Ray of Golden Sunshine

2010-02-08T17:03:00.002-06:00

Thanks to the not-so-angry-redhead - Fits and Starts has received a Sunshine award!

This reminds me of an inside joke with James, originating from a funny old lady who told him once, in a very high-pitched and excited voice, "Ooooooh! You are just a ray of golden sunshine!" Well, despite the weather, I certainly feel like one today. It's nice to know someone out there is reading ... so thanks!

In doing my duty to pass along the love, I decided to nominate only Austin-area blogs, in no particular order:
The Wabi Sabi Home Garden
Digging
East Side Patch
The Shovel-Ready Garden
The Grackle
Society Garlic
Kiss of Sun
Rock Rose
Not So Big Garden
Getting Grounded
Gardening in Austin
Zanthan Gardens

The rules ...

• Put the Logo on your sidebar, or within a post.

•Pass the award onto 12 Bloggers

•Link the nominees within your post.

•Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

•Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award

Compost and dogs

2010-01-31T12:32:00.000-06:00

We modified our compost bin to keep our dog out of the food scraps ... added a gate to the first bin.

Hopefully this will keep Oliver safe (he has a long track record of getting into stuff he shouldn't...)

I heard from a friend of a friend who's a vet tech that since composting has become more popular, they've seen a number of dogs who get sick from eating compost. I asked the Internet about this but only found a few lame articles discussing rotting meat and dairy products in compost piles (duh - you're never supposed to put those types of things in a backyard compost pile!) Has anyone else heard about this?

Native Lawns

2010-01-29T09:40:00.002-06:00

Did you know lawns are major contributors to air pollution and climate change? I just renewed my membership to the Wildflower Center after reading an update about their efforts to develop a more environmentally friendly lawn mix. Maybe this Spring we'll finally take the plunge and reseed our lawn with native grasses. It will be a ton of work, so I've been avoiding it for several seasons. This might be the year for it, though. Last fall, we seeded our lawn with Winter Rye, which turned out great, and is supposed to be a good way to enrich the soil the season before replanting. (till the grass under, let it compost...)

How to Plant a Native Lawn (from the Wildflower Center)

The Tough Love Garden

2010-01-24T17:11:00.000-06:00

The tough love garden fends for itself. It doesn't get watered much, pruned much, fertilized much. It definately doesn't get covered, even during a week long dip below freezing.

Amazingly enough, its not completely dead! The greens (arugula, spinach, a couple types of lettuce) all seem to have made it past the freeze OK, as did the broccoli. The sweet peas took a beating but there is still some green in them, and maybe, some hope. I'd give the artichokes a 50-50 chance. The basil and eggplant bit the dust.

Victory is Ours!

2010-01-18T13:39:00.001-06:00

After several years of forgetting until it was too late, we finally got us some of the free christmas tree mulch down at Zilker Park. Here's a shot of James shoveling it in. What a great deal (free)! As of today at about 11 am, there was still a pretty good size pile left, but I bet it doesn't last more than a few days since there was a steady stream of people showing up. We're using it for pathways and to mulch around a tree. Hopefully it will reduce the muddy paw prints all over our house.

Foolproof fall gardening

2009-11-15T10:22:00.001-06:00

I don't even know why I bother gardening in the Spring! I've done pretty much nothing to the garden since I threw all the seeds down (except a little thinning). With the perfect rain we've been having, I think I've only watered once. Everything is growing like crazy ... I can taste the broccoli and peas now!

Nov 2009 - Bloom Day

2009-11-15T10:17:00.001-06:00

A few blooms from a misty and cool November morning. Bulbine, russian sage, mutabolis rose, and turk's cap.

Compost pile upgrade

2009-11-15T10:12:00.000-06:00

Before & After

This weekend we finally crossed a long-standing to-do item off the list - re-building our compost pile using scrap materials we've had lying about for a while. We moved from one big 4-sided wire mesh pile which was very hard to turn, to a 3-compartment pile made of old sheet metal and pallets. The idea is to move the piles to the right progressively - makes it easier to turn the compost and use it! For now we're leaving the fronts open to make it easier to turn, but we may need to put a front on at least the first pile which will have the more recent food scraps to keep our dog and other animals out of it. One word of caution - composting (esp. turning compost piles!) is not for those who have issues with giant roaches and other bugs - EEK!

Fall garden = planted

2009-09-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

Whew! It's not so fall-like out there, but I have to admit, I enjoyed every minute. We got about 10 bags of compost and worked it into the soil, then planted a bunch of stuff from seed: snap peas, squash, greens of all kinds (lettuce, spinach, etc.) lots of broccoli, some onions, some different herbs, etc. etc.

We still have a lot of chard, eggplant, basil, and pepper plants from the spring that somehow made it through the inferno. I'd be interested to hear whether folks have ever kept these things going through the fall and what their luck is with it. Does the Chard get bitter once the plants are "old" ? The eggplant has flowers on it, I wonder if we'll actually get any fruit?? Also, two artichoke plants have popped up - also survived all the way from last early spring! I'm excited to see whether they actually thrive and make artichokes this fall ... always fun to have an experiment going.

True to the name of this blog, I tend to vacillate between being "scientific" about planting and just grabbing a bunch of stuff and throwing it in the ground and seeing what works by trial and error. This fall garden will be more of the latter.

Back in the Saddle!

2009-09-20T01:05:00.000-05:00

Hellooooooooooooooooo out there!

I've been AWOL for a few months ... and if you live in Central Texas, I probably don't need to tell you why I haven't much felt like gardening or reporting on the sad state of affairs in my yard. There were a few moments there where I thought I might throw in the towel altogether. But as the temperatures have come down to "mild" high 80s ... presto - my gardening bug returned. Thank goodness, because it was getting pretty bleak!

So, attack of the garden project is back! In the spring I hastily put in a new bed in the backyard. It didn't fare too well over the summer, and it was seriously depressing to look at, so I got motivated today to re-do the bed.

I weeded, spread a nice layer of compost, and put in some new plants to add to the few surviving ones, and changed the design a bit:

Surviving: Belinda's dream rose, agave, 4-nerve daisy, and bulbine.
(R.I.P. black foot daisy, copper canyon daisy, and a few other things)

New: Yucca, lantana, more bulbine (divided from others I had), russian sage, sedum, and dianthus

Also new: I decided to go for the crushed granite/rock look in this bed, hoping it will help prevent runoff from the roof when it rains (yes, I know, we'll put up gutters eventually)

And last but not least, I finally put in a drip irrigation system for the backyard! I love the one I put in front last year (my plants on drippers actually survived the summer O.K.) and I'm excited to be able to expand this one into the fall vegetable garden and container plants on the back patio soon. It amazes me how easy it is to do ... if you haven't tried putting one together yet, I highly recommend it.

Well, that's it. More posts coming soon. Ahhhhh, it feels good to be back.

The day I put in the bed back in April ...

Hallelujah!

2009-07-01T07:48:00.004-05:00

An inch and a half of rain in the garden yesterday - I'll take it!

Fits and Starts vs. The Summer: Round 1

2009-06-23T12:06:00.006-05:00

Yes, I'm going to bitch about the heat now. It's what I do this time of year, OK? James says it's best not to talk about it, it just makes it worse, but perhaps you will indulge me.

This time of year is when my joy of gardening gets tested big time. In the Fall and Spring (i.e. the rest of the year), it's hard to keep me OUT of the garden. But at this point in the summer (and yes, deep breaths, we are in fact at "this point" already, I've finally admitted to myself), the only thing that drives me out there is a desperate attempt to avoid seeing all my previous hard work shrivel up and die.

Things I call my back yard right now: the surface of the sun, blazing inferno, the scalding torture place (you get the picture). I've decided my limits on timing for gardening are now before 10 am or after 8 pm, and that may be pushing it. Spending time out there during the rest of the day is just cheating death by heatstroke, in my opinion.

Vegetable garden report:
I'm happy to report that I'm still getting a consistent, good haul of tomatoes (not all the varieties are still producing, but a few are doing great, esp. Arkansas Traveler), green beans, and peppers. On the other hand, the eggplant still hasn't produced a single fruit, and the squash, zukes, and cucumbers have slowed way down.

On my to-do list:
I've been out of town the last few weekends so I'm way behind on basic maintenance and summer heat prep/abatement. This weekend I plan to put a good, thick layer of compost and mulch around everything, fertilize, thoroughly inspect for pests and other problems, and prune out everything that looks depressing (dead/dying leaves, herbs past their prime, etc.) I think that will make me feel better - I'm not giving in to you yet, blasting sun!!! I've still got some fight in me!!
I'm thinking of planting some Okra plants to fill in some spots. I'm embarrassed to admit I've never planted Okra before and everyone tells me its the least depressing thing to have in your garden in the middle of July in Austin.
And if I'm feeling really motivated, I might finally put in the drip irrigation for the veggies. As the shovel ready garden recently described, it's really not that hard to do, and helps a lot with THE ENDLESS SUMMER GARDEN CHORE = WATERING (and it's much more efficient, too).

So it's the opening round of Fits and Starts vs. The Summer. Who will win? More updates soon.

Spring Slides to Summer

2009-06-07T13:06:00.005-05:00

Well, it was nice while it lasted. Work was really busy, and then I blinked, and Spring was gone. I've found I've quickly morphed into summer mode: swimming every day is not just nice, it's a survival tactic. The garden in the middle of the day looks tired, but it's hanging in there, despite some neglect in recent weeks.

I'm about done with the broccoli (it's bolting as you see, but it's still quite tasty even after its started to flower. The one below is slated for stir-fry tonight). I'm replacing the spot in the garden where the spinach and lettuce and broccoli was located with several kinds of bush beans and snow peas Alix gave me. Wonder how far they'll make it in the coming inferno?

The chard is still rocking along with no signs of bolting, and it's become a mainstay of our diet. And the best thing - the tomatoes have really started to come in! The birds have been launching an all-out frontal assault (no squirrel action yet as far as I can tell). James got some netting today that I will be installing soon. (Nothing more depressing than finding so many tomatoes with holes where they've been pecked!! Especially when they peck small holes in 4 or 5 instead of just going after one entire fruit! ahh!!!) I'm resorting to what I did last year: picking the fruit as soon as it shows the slightest sign of ripening, and letting it finishing ripening inside. I've found that works pretty well ... and from what I've read on everyone else's blogs about how much of a pain netting is ... I'm not too excited about putting it up!

The cucumber plants have tons of flowers but the fruit has been slow to set ... just now getting a few nice, large fruit. The green beans are still going strong, and delicious! And the peppers are putting out a lot of VERY SPICY fruit, especially the jalapenos.
The squash and zucchini are still alive, a big accomplishment for me this time of year. I've been getting a good number of squash but no zukes yet! I've been keeping vigilant eyes out for squash vine borers and treating with BT at the first sign of any, which seems to be working. I also mounded compost up around the base of all the plants a couple of times, which seems to have helped keep them strong. Now I seem to have a problem with pill/sow bugs which are living underneath the pine straw mulch. Although I've read that they usually don't kill established plants and can usually be left alone, there are TONS of them and I think they may be munching on some of the squash/zuchinni stems, so I plan to get some more of the SLUGG-O organic bait designed to get rid of them. It's pretty expensive, but worked very well on an infestation I had a few years ago.

the best part of an otherwise ho-hum Monday...

2009-05-18T21:53:00.007-05:00

... harvesting a nice variety of stuff from the garden (including the first green beans(!), squash, chard, and a very hot banana pepper) and having a lovely candlelit dinner with James. I love that having the fresh veggies around inspires us to cook new things and make a bigger deal out of dinner. (It just doesn't seem right to eat home grown veggies in front of the TV!) Score another point for the garden.

This week's mystery

2009-05-10T21:08:00.006-05:00

I've enjoyed posting random mysteries I've encountered in the garden that aren't solved in less than 5 minutes of googling and finding out what you think. And I can't believe I got this shot with my camera! Anyone know what this fly is? Is it good or bad or indifferent for the garden?

Know Thine Enemy: Leaf-footed bugs versus Assassin bugs

2009-05-10T20:33:00.006-05:00

Adult Leaf-Footed Bug (hanging out on my broccoli. Died shortly therafter. Sorry bug, I had to do what I had to do. RIP)

They're BAAAAAAAAAAAAA-CK ... my yearly battle with stink bugs in the garden has begun. Actually, you're supposed to call the bugs I'm talking about "leaf-footed bugs" but I always grew up calling them "stink bugs." The bugs inject a poison into tomato plants when feeding on them that causes a rough patch on the fruit and diseased-looking spots of tissue underneath. They must like to feed on squash and cucumber plants, too, because I've been seeing them on those plants as well.

This website from the Galveston County Master Gardeners has some good info on control of these suckers. The bottom line is that they are difficult to control (duh!) but with some vigilance, you can limit the damage they cause. I have found a quick 10-min inspection of the garden at dusk or in the morning with a spray bottle of a soapy mixture usually does the trick pretty well.

One thing I used to have a hard time with is properly identifying the nymph stage of these bugs, and focusing my wrath appropriately on these guys and not the beneficial assassin bug. So here are some pictures to help with that:

The good guy: Assassin Bug

The bad guy: leaf-footed bug nymphs (usually found in colonies when they are very small) This is a picture I took of them on my squash plants (hence the bad quality), moments before they got the soap spray.

Garden = Yum!

2009-05-10T20:10:00.007-05:00

Green Beans

The tomato corner

Roma Tomatoes

The squash I ate tonight.

Baby cucumber

The veggie garden is coming along well. Over the last week I harvested the rest of the spinach and radishes (they were just starting to bolt.) I made some delicious eggs Florentine for breakfast yesterday with the spinach. The green beans are blooming and just starting to produce fruit, as are the tomatoes and cucumbers. (I can almost taste the gazpacho!) Tonight I harvested the third squash of the season and made up a sauteed dish with onions, squash, and chard from the garden, with a little bit of olive oil, soy sauce, and vinegar. Yum!

What the ...?

2009-05-02T19:12:00.005-05:00

In the various books and articles I've read about organic gardening, one of the most repeated pieces of advice seems to be - inspect your garden regularly ... pay attention ... and catch problems early so you don't have to resort to big, bad, chemicals to solve a problem that's gotten way out of hand. Well, in that spirit, and because in the short life of this blog it's already been very helpful to get readers' advice via comments ... does anyone have any idea what's on my lettuce? It's either something's poop or something's eggs. I'm not sure which would be worse. If it is something's eggs ... anyone know what? If it's something good I don't want to kill it. My gut is telling me that it's probably some type of worm ... a worm that likes to eat lettuce, and that I should get rid of it, but if you have any ideas, I'm all ears!

Gardenia Update

2009-05-02T19:00:00.006-05:00

So I took Caroline's advice and re-potted the gardenia today in 2/3 peat moss and 1/3 sand, with some Lady Bug brand cottonseed meal (it said acid-loving plants like gardenias like it on the back of the bag. I've been using it in the veggie garden this year). It was pretty root bound in its old pot, but no sign of rot or bugs in the roots ... I guess that's good? It is still putting out some new growth so I'm hoping it still has a chance of survival ... keep your fingers crossed! (p.s. got a 40% discount on the terra cotta pot at Home Depot by pointing out a small hairline crack on the side of it.)

DIY Tomato Cages

2009-04-26T14:53:00.002-05:00

I have decided I don't like the standard tomato cages you see everywhere. They are too small and flimsy and end up falling over halfway through the season. I found some heavy-duty ones called "Texas tomato cages" at the Natural Gardener last year, but at $25 a pop, I'm not going to go buy 15 of those anytime soon. Although I'm still using a lot of the flimsy ones this year (mostly for beans & cucumbers to grow on, but for a few of the tomatoes, too), I decided to make some of my own cages from old fencing material I had laying around (and some donated by the neighbors - thanks Phil & Dub!) So far they seem to be working out great. Here's how I did it:

Unwind the fencing material (it will already want to make a circle) and using some pliers or snippers (eye protection recommended), cut off the desired length. I've been making my cages varying sizes (experimenting) but you do want to give tomatoes as much space as possible. Be sure to cut it so you have a length of wire on one side of the cage to bend around and attach it to itself to make a circle (see below)

Once the piece is cut out, I stand it up on one end and cut off the bottom row to make stakes to stick into the ground.

I also cut some bigger openings in the fencing to make it easier for branches to come through, and to access the plant for pruning and harvesting.
I'm sure the resulting scraps will come in handy in other projects (staking things, tying things, etc.)

Since my plants were already kind of big, I left one side open and gently wrapped the cage around the plant.

Then I lined up the sides and pinched the extra length I was sure to leave on one side around to attach the sides together.

And presto, the crazy tomato side of my garden with way too many tomatoes and a hodge-podge of different types of cages.

What is wrong with my gardenia?

2009-04-26T13:31:00.006-05:00

Any ideas?

I've had this plant about 6 years and it's always done great. (It's one of the few non-native plants I keep around and baby for sentimental reasons.) It's been in this pot about 3 years. I am getting suggestions such as - too much water; too little water; not enough sun; soil too alkaline ... fungal diseases? etc. etc. I have been trying various things but the poor plant keeps looking worse.

More ladybug pics

2009-04-18T11:43:00.005-05:00

from larva to ladybug

And I found one laying eggs!

still lots of aphids on the tree, but now I think the worst is over and the ladybugs have in fact begun to control the population. I can't get over how cool the larvae look.

After the Rain, Happiness.

2009-04-18T11:28:00.005-05:00

Is it just me or does everything seem to double in size after some good rains like this? This morning in the vegetable garden everything seems so happy, including me.

Squash blossoms and baby squash

The first blossom of the cucumber plants

Everyone's greens seem to be bolting but mine. The lettuce, spinach, kale, and root veggies are coming in strong and I've already been harvesting tons of radishes.

The green beans have started climbing everything within reach

The whole garden looking green & happy

Topsy Turvey Update

2009-04-18T11:18:00.003-05:00

I may have to eat my words on this. So far, the tomatoes seems to doing pretty well, despite my initial skepticism. And James points out that they are putting on fruit before the plants in the garden. Hmmm ....

First Garden Bloggers Bloom Day Post

2009-04-15T19:17:00.007-05:00

Happy Bloom Day and I'm excited to be posting blooms for the first time! Most of these are from the front bed where I've been trying to establish a patch for wildflowers, with a few other random selections thrown in.

Wild Onion (I love these seed pods)

Phlox and Indian Blanket

Black-Foot Daisy

Lemon Boy Tomato

Yarrow

Indian Blanket

Mutabolis Rose

Bluebonnets

Winecups

Oh yeah, and those "bloomin'" aphids/ladybugs! :)

Dillema with this aphid situation

2009-04-14T14:45:00.003-05:00

Update: I am having a dilemma today about the Avocado tree because just in the last day, there are more and more ladybug larvae on the tree, but the tree is looking a lot worse from the aphid explosion. I found a spot where it is developing sooty mold from the aphid "honeydew." I don't know what to do - I want to save the tree but I know that the ladybug larvae need the aphids to survive. (I don't think I could move the larvae to a rose bush with no aphid colony for them to feed on.) Maybe if I just leave it, the seemingly increasing numbers of ladybug larvae will control it? I was discouraged when I found this life cycle chart above at how long the larval stage lasts (21 days!) The tree might be dead by then? Or maybe that's good news because the voracious larvae will be around to eat more aphids? I'm so confused!

Because I'm crazy, I was thinking about picking off the larvae and putting them in one section of the tree that has some aphids, and then carefully cleaning the rest of the leaves with a soapy/neem oil mixture? (Solomon's splitting the baby solution?) Am I being too much of a bleeding heart environmentalist here? Any suggestions out there? What would my fellow gardeners do?

Ants and Aphids and Aphids and Ants!

2009-04-13T09:05:00.009-05:00

Yikes!! My garden seems to have been invaded in the last weeks. I previously posted about the Avocado tree looking sad with browning leaves. Even though I've been using Neem oil every week to combat what I thought might be some sort of fungus, aphids have now appeared (seriously drawing into question the effectiveness of Neem oil for me, at least for aphid control. Or at least making me doubt my methods for applying it. It definitely will kill them when applied directly to the undersides of the leaves, but hasn't stemmed the overall tide.) Anyway, as I was inspecting the underside of the leaves this morning, I found quite a few of the bugs pictured below! Which I'm pretty sure are lady bug larvae (they are definitely an "ugly duckling" sort of larval stage), eating up those aphids. So, even though I'm quite worried about the tree, I'm going to leave it be for a little while and see if the ladybugs can control it. Maybe I'll even buy some more to add to the area. Also, since the tree is kind of close to the garden, I'm thinking that it's acting like a trap crop ... better on the tree than on the tomatoes, right?

In the vegetable garden, there are a lot of ants. They seem to be mostly crawling around in the dirt, and not on the plants as much. (Hopefully this is not a harbinger of aphids to come, since ants tend to "herd" aphids around, but I haven't seen any after pretty close inspection of the underside of leaves this morning.) I have been using diatomaceous earth to control ants for a while now, and generally have been happy with its effectiveness. Today I went a little crazy "mulching" around all the plants with a much thicker layer of DE than I usually use. Looks like it snowed! Hopefully it will thin out the ant population and keep them out of my first squash blooms!!! Update 4/15: the application of DE, plus a spraying with neem oil seems to have staved off the growing ant population this week. I'm expecting to battle them all season, though.

Wildflower Season

2009-04-12T21:23:00.005-05:00

I drove to Houston this weekend by way of a friend's family's place between Brenham & Belleville. There were some absolutely stunning fields of wildflowers on some of those back roads. These pictures only kind of do one field I drove by justice. Once I got back to the highway, I took 290 to Houston and came home via 71. Both roads also had nice displays of bluebonnets, other flowers, and grasses. (And also lots of people risking their lives and squashing untold flowers to take pictures alongside the highway.)

Thank you, Lady Bird!

Attack of the garden project

2009-04-10T15:43:00.008-05:00

This morning when I woke up on my day off, I had no idea I was going to be putting in a new bed behind the house. I actually though I was going to "take it easy"! (ha! famous last words for someone who loves to garden with time on her hands on a beautiful spring day.) I will admit that I did plan to put the rose I got last week in the ground before leaving town for the weekend, but I thought I could stop at any time. So I went to the Natural Gardener "just to get some rose magic soil" and left with 4 bags of dirt and a few more plants to actually make a bed out of the sunny area/wasteland by the A/C unit in the back yard. If you really want to know the truth, I think I was also acting out a little since I'm a little depressed about missing the Wildflower Center's Spring Plant Sale this year. (I put myself on probation this season after splurging way too much last year on plants that weren't well thought-out and didn't end up making it in the area where I put them!)

I already had the rose and an agave I got from Rachel; I bought three types of daisies and a native grass to go along with them. I also divided some of the bulbine I have growing out front and added that to the bed, too. (Come to think of it, Rachel gave me that, too, and it's growing like crazy. Thanks Rachel!) Like always, I got small plants. It's always challenging not to put them too close together - the rose and the copper canyon daisy can get quite big, but hopefully I gave them enough space. It will take a while for them to grow in, and I still need to figure out what to do with the edging, but overall, I'm happy with it!

Before & After

The bed has bulbine, a "belinda's dream" rose, an agave of some sort, three types of daisies:black foot, four-nerve, and copper canyon; and a purple threeawn grass. (The missing siding around the window is a never-ending DIY home project - that's a subject for a whole other blog!)

Radish, you delight me

2009-04-07T18:53:00.004-05:00

Look what I found in the garden today!

Chomp!!! The flavor is fantastic. A little sweet at first with a sharp/spicy bite.

Time to start pruning the tomatoes

2009-04-04T11:40:00.007-05:00

Today in the garden I realized it's about time to start pruning the tomatoes ... man, do they grow fast! I found a good article in Fine Gardening that describes how to do this ... I'm going to try to stay on top of it this year since I have so many plants in a small area. It really is key to prune them if you want to get consistent crops of good fruit and keep the plants pest & disease free. (Learned this the hard way last season in my laissez-faire gardening experiment)

Everything else in the garden seems to be doing well ... These weekly rain showers have been great!

Thorns and Roses (And Habaneros)

2009-04-02T16:53:00.003-05:00

At summer camp they used to make us do this activity every night called "thorns and roses." You had to say the worst and best part of your day. Well - the worst part of my last 24 hours = having my purse stolen (with a nearly-complete stamp card from the Natural Gardener in it - DOH!) I've been pretty fixated on this all day long, as you might imagine. Since I've already bored everyone within earshot with that story, in this forum I'll jump to the best part of my day: getting 3 free plants at a promotional event for the Texas Agrilife Extension Office put on at the State Capitol grounds today!

I got a "TAM Mild Habanero" plant developed by the Extension Office, which is supposed to produce a golden yellow fruit with mild heat. It also says it's early maturing, extremely heat tolerant and very productive ... sounds good to me!

I also had an interesting conversation with one of the folks there about the relationship between how hot a pepper gets and growing conditions. I have heard varying things like "if they're too wet they get too hot," and "if they're too dry they get too hot." Well, turns out both of those statements are true. She said it's more related to stress, which could be caused by either extreme - so there!

I also got 2 "Belinda's Dream" roses from Chamblee's Rose Nursery in Tyler. The materials on this one tout that it was introduced in 1992, has large pink blossoms, and is the most disease and soil tolerant hybrid rose they've ever tested at AgriLife Extension. It's also labeled as an "Earth Kind Rose." I just checked out the Earth Kind Environmental Landscape Management System website and it looks like a great resource for environmentally-sound gardening practices and information about specific plant varieties. Again, sounds good to me! I'll you know how it goes ...

Transplanting Native Plants

2009-04-01T12:33:00.014-05:00

Patrick's post on transplanting bottlebrush shrubs inspired me to share this info: I've had some luck transplanting natives, but usually it's quite traumatic for them since most of them have deep root systems to find water. The best results I had was in the Spring of 2006, when my sister & I transplanted a whole garden's worth of salvias, a large mutabilis rose and other natives from a soon-to-be construction site at her house to my yard. I asked for advice from the Natural Gardener's staff and they suggested the following:

cut back the plant by 1/3
fall is the best time to do this, when the plants are dormant (We did it in the Spring, though - the bulldozers weren't waiting); the worst time to do it is when all the plant's energy is in putting out blooms
after digging up as much of the root ball as humanly possible, let the roots soak in a liquefied seaweed mixture for a little while (30 min or so) before planting in the ground
prepare the new spot well - dig as big a hole as you can and loosen the soil up, & add a little compost
if it's hot/sunny, shade the new plant for a few weeks until it gets past the shock. (Hence the stakes in the picture, we spread a tarp over the bed.)

I followed these steps and miraculously, most of the plants survived. Of course, we had a crazy amount of rain that summer which certainly helped. The picture above is from from the day we transplanted everything back in spring of 2006 (They look OK in this picture, but I remember that they looked much worse in the next few weeks before they started to look better. The mutabilis especially looked pretty much dead, but it came back & is alive & well today). Since then I've expanded the bed to add a patch for wildflowers, and everything is just starting to bloom - including a single bluebonnet.

If anyone has tips on transplanting small Texas mountain laurels, I'm all ears. I've tried several times to no avail.

Inspiration

2009-04-01T09:05:00.003-05:00

I came across this quote today, from Wislawa Szymborska's lecture accepting the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996. Thought I would share.

"Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their jobs with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners - and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges with every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know.'"

Mueller Praries via The Grackle

2009-03-30T09:38:00.004-05:00

Our neighbor-blogger The Grackle posted last week about the amazing job the Wildflower Center's done with the Southwest Greenway Park at the new development at the old Mueller airport. I had been meaning to go see what was going on over there, and the post prompted us to finally check it out yesterday. I was very impressed! See The Grackle's post about it for pictures.

Neem, the wonder oil?

2009-03-28T10:22:00.004-05:00

I've been serious about my vegetable garden for about 3 years now, and this is the first year I'm using neem oil to control pests and diseases. I've heard vaguely about neem oil for a while now, but I finally did some research into it and have decided to use it regularly this season. Here's the best article I found about it. (Last season I battled powdery mildew on my cucumbers constantly, and had a really hard time controlling stink bugs around the tomatoes and squash borers on the squash and zuchinni). Here's what I've discovered neem can do:

prevents/controls diseases such as powdery mildew, fungal diseases such as anthracnose, rust spot diseases, scab, etc.
kills insects on contact (broad spectrum so should be used carefully), but does not have a long residual time (meaning you can use it to control a visible problem, but after a few days the neem will be less potent and shouldn't have a big impact on beneficials). It seems to be particularly effective because it disrupts insect breeding (inhibits egg laying)

Here's what I've found on suggested use:

The most common recommended application rate is 2 tablespoons per gallon of 70% concentrated Neem Oil. (Important to read the label of the stuff you're buying since there's many neem products out there.)
There's mixed opinons out there on whether or not you need to mix in a surfacant (soapy mixture that helps oils spread). Some people say they mix a little bit of castille soap (Dr. Bonner's), others say this isn't necesssary and results in a longer residual time, increasing the chances of harming beneficials.
Should use a hand sprayer, only mix up as much mixture as you will use within a few hours, and agitate the mixture frequently as you spray.
Should be careful not to spray directly on beneficials such as bees or ladybugs. Should avoid spraying on the flowers of plants as residuals could harm bees and other pollinators.
Frequency for controlling an existing disease or insect colony problem should be every 7 days until the problem is under control, then every 14 days.

Right now I have a problem with what I think is anthracnose on an avacado tree (see picture at right.) So I have been mixing up a gallon of neem oil (no soap) and spraying every 7 days until it looks better, then I'll go to every 14. So far the new leaves emerging seem to be spot-free. Since I have the spray mixed up, I've been using it as a preventative in the garden, but I will probably switch to using it less/on as-needed. I don't want to go overboard on the stuff, since I'm still a little worried about its potential negative impact on beneficials (although I did notice a ladybug that looked ok on the avacado tree a few days after I had sprayed it.)

Skeptical

2009-03-28T10:12:00.005-05:00

James brought home one of those "as seen on TV" upside-down tomato planters. (Since we only have 11 tomato plants planted in the garden, I guess he felt we might need more.) I am very, very skeptical that it will work. Don't roots like to grown down? Don't plants like to grow up towards the sun? The instructions said you could plant 2 plants in it, so he planted a cherry tomato variety and another, normal-size fruit variety. I will be very surprised if these plants do very well, especially since Jorge Garcia already conducted a consumer test on this product on his blog a while back.

Ambitious Spring Veggie Garden

2009-03-26T13:12:00.002-05:00

So far my gardening energy this spring has been focused on a major upgrade to the vegetable garden. This is our third year (!) in our house in East Austin, and even though we've had successful gardens the last couple of years, we thought it time to build a raised bed and invest in better soil. Here's what the garden looked like at the beginning of last Spring:

And here it is a few weeks ago:

My earlier post talked about the construction of the bed and our concerns about using pressure treated lumber. Once we got the frame built and the soil dug down a good foot, we went to the Natural Gardener and got 4 yards (that's 4 trips / 4 pick-up trucks full) of their Hill Country Garden Soil mix. (You know you're a garden nerd when you wake up early on a Saturday morning like it's Christmas, so happy that today is dirt day! and happily shovel wheelbarrowfulls of dirt all day long).

I'm trying out square foot gardening for the first time. I haven't read the book, but by looking at the website I got a pretty good idea of the square foot gardening concept. As far as I can tell, besides the standard approach of building a raised bed and using top-notch soil, the square foot gardening theory just helps you organize your garden and better utilize space. I ended up deciding to only use the square foot garden method in about half the bed, since I couldn't bear to crowd plants like squash and tomotoes into such a small area. In the picture above you'll also see I put in some walk planks so that I could get to the center of the garden without compacting the soil.

The garden has a TON of variety in it, which I'm excited about. Looking at the seed planting guides for Travis County, I realized I could (maybe?) get in an early crop of what I usually consider fall/winter plants - greens, brocolli, root veggies, etc., so I planted these all from seed on the left side of the garden. The middle has peppers, eggplant, squash/zuchinni, and cucumbers, and the right side is mostly tomato plants - quite a few different varieties. I also threw in a few strawberry plants (impulse buy!) Everything is just emerging or settling in right now ... and since we've actually been getting a good mix of rain and sun, the progress is visible every day. More pictures soon ...

Using Pressure Treated Lumber Around Vegetables

2009-03-26T10:53:00.004-05:00

In the process of upgrading our vegetable garden to a raised bed this year, we started to use some scrap pressure treated lumber we had leftover from other house projects as stakes. We thought this would be great since pressure treated lumber is rated for ground contact and could withstand years of getting wet and would resist rotting. But, right about the time we had driven in the last of the stakes into the ground, I got to thinking ... wait ... what about the chemicals used to treat this lumber? Is it safe to use around vegetables? Is it OK according to organic gardening standards? So I did some google searches and in the end, we decided to pull all those stakes out and start over. I thought I would share some of the most useful information I found on the topic:

National Guidelines for Organic Certification prohibit the use of pressure treated lumber, including in frames for planting beds. That was enough for me.
Fine Gardening article, Does Pressure Treated Lumber Belong in Your Garden? (This article has good, detailed information about the types of chemicals used in pressure treated lumber past and present, and the various factors to weigh when making a decision)
The Manic Gardener blog articles
Organic Alternatives to Treated Lumber by the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (geared towards organic farms)

In the end we went with metal posts and untreated cedar boards for our raised bed. Woods like cedar and douglas fir are resistent to rot and bugs and you don't have to worry about the chemical issue (of course, they're more expensive, but we had a few lying around already and found that the thinner cedar boards made for fence pickets worked pretty well and were pretty cheap to fill in the rest. I'll let you know how long they last!) Some people also suggest using plastic/recycled decking material or using pressure treated lumber but lining the inside of the bed with heavy plastic to create a barrier between the soil and the wood (which seemed to defeat the purpose of having good drainage in a raised bed, in my opinion.)

Here's the first layer of cedar boards going in. We used generic green metal stakes found in the garden section at Home Depot (about $3 each) and 2 layers of cedar fence boards (about $3 each)

Here's the finished product. (The first layer of cedar boards is now hidden underneath the back fill). I was unhappy with the green posts sticking out on top at first, and was going to cut them off. Then I noticed some spare fencing material we had behind the shed, and was able to make a nice fence around the edge. This has been really helpful in keeping our dog & 2 cats, and other animals out (although it appears a racoon or something else is still getting in at night-scoundrels!)