Seeing Green on St. Patrick's Day

Finally the drizzle has stopped and the sun is shining.   So far this season I have yet to purchase any plants for my garden.  One of Jennie's friends is a retired teacher and now has a farm in east Austin. At Jennie's last Bunco meet-up, she called and asked if I would like some tomato plants. Of course I said sure any plant that's free is a good plant. Jennie came home with 14 tomato plants of different varieties.

Here is what she brought home:

Blond Koph Chen cherry

Cherokee Purple 

Kellogg's Breakfast 

Dr. Wyche's

Yoder's German

Blue cream cherry

Solar flair 

Hillbilly Potato leaf

German Pink

Creole Original 

and two other varieties that I lost the tags for.   

I put three plants per bed, mixed in to the already abundant cilantro plants growing. I planted 7 of the 19 acorn squash plants that I started from produce bought at HEB.   

The Brussels sprouts are coming up nicely and a few watermelon seedlings have sprouted as well.  Just need a place to put them now. 

One place is the bed I moved next to my patio.  I just need some dirt for it as well as the two keyhole garden beds I built this week for my front yard.   

The idea behind keyhole gardening is to use less water. You build a tall structure with layers of sticks, cardboard, newspaper, leaves, grass clippings, and anything else that will hold water, and then top off the top with 6" of good soil.  In the center you create a place to put in compost and containing leftovers from kitchen scraps and leaves and other grass clippings.  When watering your beds all you do is water the center compost area. When watering, water only the center compost pile so the nutrients from the compost will travel out to your plants surrounding it, giving all your plants what they need.  I used the corrugated tin and cedar 4x4s, to make them appealing and long lasting.   I had some leftover tin so I made a small planter box for under the window.  

I just need to fill them with soil and cap the perimeter of the tops to hid the edges of the sharp tin. 

For what to put into the small window box, I have noticed that the Asian lily that my mother gave me years ago is a pretty hardy plant.  I don't water it at all and it keeps coming back year after year.  So my last trip to Lowe's, I found several on their clearance racks, so I bought 3 different color varieties and a few other perennial   flowers to plant together.  I am not much of a flower gardener, but recently I have noticed several bees and butterflies around my house.  I dream of one day getting fresh honey from my backyard.  One project at a time.  

I'm a little worried about the trees I bought last fall for clearance at HEB.  Out of seven trees, I'm for sure one didn't make it (apple), but the others are really taking their time sprouting new growth. 

I've spent a fair amount of time dividing transplanting my lilies and cannas to new spots around the homestead to test the amount of sun exposure in areas.  

The only money I have spent this season for my garden has been the materials for the front yard keyhole garden beds and a bag of potting mix to start my seeds from grocery store produce.  I am attempting and doing my best to minimize the dollar amount spent on my garden and trying to see how far I can go with what I already have or what I can find for free to reuse or repurpose.

I've been motivated by the recent viewing of a documentary called "The Minimalists" (currently available on Netflix) and rereading a great book called "Serve God, Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action" by ER medical doctor turned author, Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth.

Well, until next time...

Go garden and Get Dirty!

I think my garden has officially made its value just in tomatoes so far

This morning I found some more ripe tomatoes ready to be picked.  Thanks to Jennie's yarn scale, I am able to get a correct weight on my tomato yield.  Today they weighed in just a hair over 2 lbs.  I think its about time I start swapping produce with my neighbors, because I can't eat this many tomatoes.  Went to HEB this morning for the weekly grocery shopping and was able  to plan a whole weeks of meals using mostly produce from my garden.  Only spent $76 for this week, that of course includes store bought produce that is organic.   My wife and I try to eat mainly organic or local.  My garden is grown organically, as well as I can.  No one can be 100% organic if growing outside.

Found another zucchini this morning about 7" long.  I am going to wait a few days before picking it, simply because I already have 2 sitting in the fridge.  Thinking about making some yummy zucchini bread with it and one of the meals for the week will be grilled zucchini pizzas.

Finally have a few Aladdin sweet and bell peppers that are getting to a good size.  The larger ones should be ready in about a week.

Pest problems:  Loopers (larva of moths) or some cutworms are devouring my kale leaves and aphids are starting to eat my tomatoes.

Possible solution: I might try to mix me up some Garrett Juice to help with the pests.  J. Howard Garrett has written several gardening books.  Some of my favorite are:

Garden Tip:  don't get tomato pollen in your eyes... it stings!!  It's the one drawback of clumping my tomato plants this year.  I was reaching deep in the depths of the clump and a leaf rubbed my eye.  From now on its safety glasses for sure.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

Spring has Sprung

Week 1, Day 1: March 20

After failing at my first attempt of a fall garden this past year, the garden received a much needed vacation.  We did however continue to get plenty of kale, cilantro, and scallions throughout the winter, even with several days below freezing and some mornings of frost.

Spring Break is usually my first opportunity to get things started and this year I have decide to expand my little backyard urban farm.  In addition to my existing 4 four by four raised beds, I have added some 8x8ft tilled ground areas.

 The back bed is ready... tilled soil with compost and to loosen up this central Texas rocky soil.  The front bed still needs to be tackled, but am going to wait until I have an idea of what I want to plant in it.   Another reason I had the urge to expand was that my backyard neighbor also expanded his garden. 

Over the break, I also reconstructed my leaf compost bin with some pallets to make 2 storage areas.  They don't look to shabby either.

So what did I plant this year...
Well I visited several of the local nurseries to see what was out and prices of each.  I ended up purchasing several from pretty much all of the nurseries, mainly to do a comparison between them to see which one will yield the best crops.

Seedlings:
Peppers: 6 Camelot green peppers, 6 Aladdin sweet peppers, 
Tomatoes: 6 Brandywine,  6 Phoenix, 6 Red Cherry Large, 6 Super Fantastic,
Onions: bunch of white and red
Vines: 2 zucchini, 2 cucumbers

Roots:
2 rhubarbs
@10 potatoes

Seeds:
Lettuce: Romaine, Bibb, Black Seeded Simpson
Melon: Honeydew
Pepper: Red Bell
Peas: Sugar, Green, Snap, Green Beans
and an some unknown seed.

This will be my first time to plant peas and beans.  Currently I have some round tomato cages for the vines to grow up on, but will eventually create some tripods with some cane poles.

I have plans to build a folding panel for the cucumbers and zucchini to grow on, lifting them off the ground that I found in Sean Conway's Cultivating Life book.  Not only will this help keep the fruit off the ground, but will also create a somewhat shady area beneath it to grow my lettuces.

As a precaution to Texas impending summer heatwave and drought, I wanted to come up with a better method for watering my garden.  In true luck fashion, as I was walking around my local Home Depot, I spotted several raised bed water irrigation systems on clearance for $14 a piece.  Each system will cover a 4x8 bed, so I picked up 4 of them just in case.  

I still have a little more room to plant some things so I will probably head back out this weekend to pick up a few more seedlings.  If anyone has any good ideas or suggestions, let me know.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

Some late bloomers in the garden

So my wife and I just got back from a trip to Hot Springs, AR and I returned to find a small black diamond watermelon about the size of a softball.  It's the first of hopefully more to come, as I can see a few flowers and small marble size melons elsewhere on the vine.

The basil is continuing to do great in this Texas summer heat and it even looks like the parsley is trying to make a comeback.   I bought some organic plant food to spread out to help my tomatoes and covered my beds with the remaining 3yr mulch I had made.  I went ahead and emptied out this years mulch to the open container to let it cook up in the heat, and start the new batch in the closed container to keep out the rodents.

Pretty much everything else is just barely hanging on.  Watering every morning, a few hours before the sun rises, there's not much else I think I could do.  I believe the biggest problem I have is that my raised beds are exposed to to much sunlight to long.  Its about time to start planting for the fall garden, so I think I am going to move it over more in the shaded areas of my backyard.  I was reading an article in the latest Urban Farm magazine about shade gardening, so I think I will give it a try.  The writer said that his cherry tomato plants did well in partial shade along with some variety of beans, leafy greens, and carrots.  Herbs also do well in partial shade, so I think I will do more container herbs so that I can move them around if needed.

Here are a few of the books and magazines that I like to use to help me with my gardening adventure.

 
This time of year you will find hundreds of cicada shells.  I came across these on the underside of a leaf.  Wonder what was going on here?

camera on phone has the worst macro

Get dirty and keep on gardening!