Time to rethink the garden

The weather is great and I am ready to take up the summer garden and start fresh. This past gardening season is one I would like to forget. When I lived in MA the garden was over by mid Sept. so if it got out of control or the weeds started taking over, it was for just a short time. I could pull it up and till it in and forget about it. But here in TX that isn't the case. Yep the garden got out of control and there are still plants producing a little bit. I hate to yank them out yet. So, what I am doing now is planning the winter crops and how I will deal with this garden next year.

I have a hard time with disorganized gardens. Last year was the first year I had good results in this fairly new veggie garden. Nothing got out of control and the weeds were not a problem. For some reason this year was different. I didn't have weeds as much as I had grasses. Even though I had laid down a weed barrier the grass traveled underneath it and came up where the plants were. Eventually by the end of July the heat and the grass was my downfall. Enough of that.

After some contemplating what to do so that I can enjoy the garden and keep it in line I concluded I needed to add some garden boxes. This way the paths would be permanent and I would not have to deal with them any more. I am going to lay down weed barrier with some mulch on top. When I run out of that free really good weed barrier I may let grass grown and then keep it clipped. Of course if it isn't watered it could die down if we have another baking summer again and no rain. Not sure if that would be as nice to walk on. Keeping nice paths between the plants was one issue I had so this should solve that problem.

My first 4 boxes will be 2x8 feet. I have a square area off the main garden that these are going to be placed in. It has a shade cloth for summer and I can place the summer squashes in there and a few other veggies that need some relief from the heat during the summer. But for now I will plant my beets and other cool weather crops there. The shade cloth will be pushed back since I will want to have the sun for the winter crops but also to heat my studio.

Since this patch of garden had not been planted this summer the grass grow like crazy and was a foot tall or more. I hit it with the weed eater and knocked it down. Even though we had several days with out rain the soil was still soaking wet and sticky and could not be tilled. We have rain coming in again mid week but if all goes well maybe by next week it will be dry enough to till. The reason I am tilling is this: I want to take some of that good soil I have in the paths and add it to the boxes. I can sink the paths some lowering the boxes some giving me more soil in the box and less I need to add.

I have been hearing a lot about square foot gardening so I decided to check it out. Not a hard concept to follow or do and I am going to give it a shot. I will be putting my own twist on it a little bit. My soil is rich and full of composted manure and such so why go out and buy more. I will go ahead and add my peat moss and vermiculite to what I have and mix it up. I then shall lay out the grids and get planting.

I haven't decided how to lay out the main part of the garden yet. I have some left over 2x6's hanging around from some building projects that I will be using to build the remainder boxes. I have two 2x6's that will make a 5x5 and that may be the center box with other boxes arranged around it. I was thinking of putting it on the diagonal and use that center 1 foot for some sort of architectural item that vines can grow on. I have all winter to find something or build something for that. Of course I need to plan my drip system for this new plan as well. And one thing I am not going to skimp on is a timer. Last summer I used one that was great but was battery operated. Then the battery ran down and the timer went screwy. And putting a new battery didn't help. I think this year a hard wired or plug in type timer is how I will keep my drip system working correctly. One gardening friend is good at laying out drip systems so I plan on calling on her for help.

I also plan to use rain water for my drip system but if we end up running out of rainwater I will use the well as my back up.

Next week I plan to get to work on this new idea and will post more with pictures of what I have come up with so far.

Happy Fall and Happy Gardening

It's raining, it's pouring and a wonderful sight indeed

It rained and it poured for almost five days but no one is complaining. It is unfortunate that our rain gauge is broken but there is no doubt we got a boat load of rain. The pasture is greening up before my eyes and what is left of my veggie garden is also perking up. I was about to throw in the towel and cut my looses until Wed. afternoon when it started raining. As soon as it drys up out there I will see what can be saved for the fall garden.
I decided that I needed to do was build boxes for raised beds instead of growing in rows with no control or order. By August the garden seemed to be out of control and no organization as to where the rows were or the paths were. With the raised beds I can just work the beds as needed and then keep the rows untouched. Either I can lay down weed barrier and mulch or even plant some grass and mow it. Depends on how far apart I place the boxes.
On Labor Day I purchased some lumber to make 4 boxes to begin the process but with the rain it was put on hold. Each box will be 2x8 feet. I can deal with that size with out killing my self and it is wide enough to plant 2 rows 8 feet long. I am going to check out the Square Foot Garden book and see if this is the way I want to go. Since the soil in my veggie garden is good and is deep ( the only place it is on the property) I plan to place a layout of where the box will be and then make my paths by digging down a inch or two tossing that soil into the place where the boxes will go. My plan is to get this done as soon as possible so I can get my broccoli in. Beets, spinach, romaine lettuce, and some other greens as well. I am also going to try planting lettuce in plant flats on the deck. This way I will have them close at hand. If it is going to rain this winter like they are talking, not having to walk into a muddy garden would be great.
Yesterday Saturday Sept 12th I attended a workshop on planting your landscape with edibles. It was a wonderful day and full of lots of information. I am finding that some of my quirky ideas (other then what normal people have) are also being used by others. One of the speakers who is a landscaper/designer is working on the Boerne Green House Project http://www.boernegreenhouse.com/. Since she is living in a Tepee and hasn't much in way of creature comforts she has had to find ways of being as comfort as possible. One way was to build a compost toilet. http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html. I have been planning this for over by my studio once the studio is done. I don't think I will use it in my veggie garden but around trees, shrubs, and flowers is ok. Also she talked about ways of taking gray water and running it into a system to then be used to water the landscape. I have been emptying my washing machine out into the yard but really need to do more then that. We are doing the bathroom over and plan to run the gray water from the shower and sink out into a tank and then figure a way to get it out into the landscape. This project will be on going and I hope started soon.
Another good topic covered was inter planting edibles in with flowers and shrubs. I have been doing that for years. 20 years ago I lived in a condo with just a little border garden on the edge of my patio. Having left a large veggie garden behind when I moved I was not going to be without my garden. So I planted a few tomatoes and peppers among my flowers. When we moved to TX I did the same thing and still do even though I have a larger veggie garden too.
Her point was that we should all be growing some of our food. John Adams had a garden in the White House yet he did not get to enjoy it much since he was voted out of office. James Madison had a garden as well but the British took care of it and the White House during the War of 1812. More recent White House gardens were during the Franklin Roosevelt era and now the Obama's have a garden too.

Check our www.eattheview.org it is worthy of a visit. It is a program designed to get more high profile places to start growing food in their landscapes. You don't have to be a fan of the Obamas to find this a worth while project. They were not the first to have a vegetable garden and I hope they won't be the last.

I will try not to be away from my blog so much this fall. I guess this summer was just so stressfull with the drought and the heat.

Happy Fall Planting!!

A good bunch of grapes

Well after several years of waiting and trying to beat one small dog out of picking all the ripe grapes we have a wonderful crop. These are wine grapes and since all the tags have faded I do not recall what they are. All I know is that I am finally getting enough to make a small patch of wine. It is so strange that even in such a drought as we have been going through the grapes are doing really well. Two years ago we had way to much rain in a short period of time I thought I had lost the whole bunch of vines. Thank goodness that was not the case. So here are a few photos for you to look at and think of the bottles of wine it will make. I shall post a picture of one of the bottle once I get it made this winter. We don't have a cellar or cool place to make wine so I need to wait for cooler weather.

Some old heirlooms makeing a presences

As I had written several posts back I planted some unusual heirlooms in my veggie garden. So here is one of them I just recently harvested. It is a Sheep's Nose Pepper. I am still looking for those heirloom tomatoes to start producing now.

Rain Rain Go Away Come Again Another Day

That is a children's song I remember from when I was growing up. After almost 2 years of not having any really good measurable rain I am finding this to be a terrible song. Last week many of my fellow master gardeners and I attended a rain barrel making workshop. Billy Kniffen who is the big guru for rain water harvesting here in TX ran the workshop. I have posted some of the photographs my friend Marilyn Pease took at the workshop. I am now ready and loaded to make a string of barrels for over in my veggie garden. I will take pictures of my progress on my barrels.







This is Billy showing us how to drill the holes in each barrel.













There are several types of barrels and ways to use them here in the photo. You can use it to have a continual drip feed to a birdbath or wildlife water system, like the one below.





The next photo is a way of using rain water catchment for wild life. It is called a Wild life guzzler

Glorious Rain

The past two weeks has brought us some nice rain. I know we need so much more. It is so great though to see that everything is so green. I am finally seeing our pasture grass getting some length to it as well.
Last week's temperatures were so different one day to the next. Friday I had to work at the nursery and it was in the upper 80's if not 90 by the end of the day. Saturday was wet and cold. About a 30 degrees difference in the two days.
Thursday of last week I started to plant my garden. First I had to test my drip system for leaks. It was sure a test of my patience. I would fix the broken emitters, run a test and then several more would blow their little tops. So now I may have them all fixed but who knows until I run the system again.
I planted 19 of the 31 tomatoes that are going out in the big garden. Thursday as well. I tilled a trench down as deep as I could and laid all the lovely tomato plants down on their sides and covered them with soil. This will provide the tomatoes with lots of nice roots to help carry water and nutrition to the fruits. Now I just have to wait.
My plan for feeding all the veggie plants was to use a syphon system. One end of the syphon hose would go into a bucket with liquid fertilizer and then draw it into the drip system and feed it to the plants. Seems these syphons had a flaw and the company is working on them. This is what the nursery told me but there may be more kinds out there. I just need to look.
The rain this weekend kept me from planting the rest of the garden and it would have been perfect to plant since it was so cool. It was to wet and our soil is gummy when it is wet so you just don't want to mess with it until it drys out more.
I guess Sunday will be the next time I can get out and finish planting it all. I hope to recruit my husband in this task as well. I should then be able to lay down the newspaper layers and then the mulch with his help at the same time.

Oh what a week can do

I should have posted this photo when I took it because the cucumber plants are so much bigger now. I will add a new photo of them later on. I planted Armenian Cucumbers and they have a lime green leaf. I have not planted these before but they have the same characteristics as English Cucumbers. I also wanted to do bread and butter pickles this year and the Armenian Cucumbers are not suited for that. So I planted some Homegrown Cucumbers. The leaves on these are nice dark green. The Homegrown are on the left and the Armenian on the right.

You can also see some tomatilloes in the back left corner and there are two tomato plants also in that flat. Oh yea don't do like I do: don't think you will remember which tomato is which later on. Ha that is why they make labels. These are either Roma or Juliets. Now I need to wait till they produce fruit.

I wanted to plant the Juliet in a topsy turvy planter. Sooooo I will plant one Juliet and one Roma instead. Well two topsy turvy planters will be fine. Seems that the topsy turvy planter has become a new trend. And like everyone else I have to try it too. So stay tuned for my progress or non progress depending how it goes.

So Lets Hear it for Fruit

It looks like this year maybe a good year for the fruit growing in my yard. The grapes as you can see are doing quite nicely. If I can keep the birds and a little black and white dog from eating them I may just get a good crop of grapes for wine.

The plum tree is also loaded this year. Last year we got 3 plums and after a fierce wind storm we ended up with one. The storm from last weekend had some hail in it and damaged some of the fruit. I have some with marks and some with out and then some on the ground. I don't care if some are marked since they will be jam and no one will know if they were perfect or not.

I thought I had lost my blackberries but they are back in full force. So if I can keep the critters for eating them maybe a pie will be in store.

I got a blueberry bush last year and cared for it with tender loving care and I guess it paid off. In fact there are a few berries on it this year. Not sure if I can beat the birds to the berries but the fact I am able to get blueberries growing in the Texas Hill Country is something to talk about. There were about 3 of us who decided to try them and I am the only one with a live plant. Next year will be the test.

We have had some strawberries so far and a few more on the way. I am not sure how well they will do over the summer but I am going to keep them in a shaded area and mulched well. Time will tell.

Watching your seedlings grow

Several weeks ago I transplanted all my tomatoes into larger pots. Most of them went into 1 gallon pots or at least until I ran out of them. By doing this I am establishing a stronger plant. I placed the seedling into the bottom of the pot and added potting soil. All along that stem will be nice new roots. I still haven't had a chance to plant in the garden yet. I wasn't able to get the drip system tested and repaired before we went on a 4 day trip so I moved everything out of the greenhouse on to the covered deck. Gave them a good drink and hoped for the best.

I am so glad I did not plant before we left because Sunday night/Monday morning we got one heck of a storm. So with the hail and high winds my plants were saved. Unfortunately the garden soil is still very wet making planting impossible. I am keeping my fingers crossed I can plant early next week. They are predicting rain again over Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Thank goodness for those 1 gallon pots.

A Wild Silk Moth

Found this little fellow in my greenhouse a few weeks ago. I was wondering what it was so I took its picture and sent it off to a friend who is an expert in such things. She told me it is a Wild Silk Moth. Wow what a deal. I know we had wild silk moths in TX but never thought I would ever see one.

I did some research to found out what they eat. Hmm the like various different types of trees and some of the are citrus. Oh no I have a lime tree in the greenhouse. The little worms can eat 10's of thousand times their weight. So I checked the leaves of my lime tree for eggs, it is fine and I have not seen much munching on the leaves. Isn't nature wonderful?

Garden Ramblings

Below you will see a few of my photos of some seedling I potted up several weeks ago. I am sorry that it took me so long to get them posted. I will post some more recent photos of my plants shortly.
The weather is creating issues. We have 90 degree days and then 40 degree days. Some nights we are in the 40's and like tonight and possibly tomorrow night we will be at freezing. Thank goodness for the greenhouse. We have a brooding light set up in there to help keep it warm at night. I think we are keeping it at least in the 40's. I did place a shade cloth over the roof so that the sun would not bake the new little plants. We have also had to deal with wind. There have been gusts up to 50+ MPH at times. It is a good thing I secured the greenhouse to the house. It has a light frame and plastic cover so one light breeze can blow it over. This is the second year so I am thinking about materials to use to make a more permanent cover. This may add a little weight so it won't blow over.

Yesterday I spent time planting some of the tomato plants I purchased into larger pots. I wanted to get them out of the 4 and 6 packs since I have a little more then 2 weeks before I will consider planting them into the garden. I have about 30 tomato plants right now. Ok it may not seem like a lot to some of you but it is a lot for us since there are only two of us and most of the people I know have gardens too. So I have some Early Girls, they are good stand bys for me and do well here. I have 8 celebrity tomato plants also. I haven't grown them since I first started a veggie garden. I had not seen Marglobe in the nurseries for years and decide to give them a try also. Of course Juliets are a must and I am thinking of trying one of them as a topsy turvy tomato. They are not large enough to plant yet so it may be a few weeks before I can show you mine in its container.

I have a part time job in a nursery for the planting season. I am finding myself tempted by these new to me tomato and pepper plants on the market. So I have invested and bought a few of them. The new to me peppers are Lipstick and Sheepnose peppers. The tomatoes are Hillbilly, Country Taste, and Deborao. Had to have the last one since it is almost my name sake. Stay tuned for a report on these as the season goes on.

I plan to get some flowers started during the week but I need to get some more soil. Ran out while transplanting my tomatoes and I need to finish that and then start my flowers. I don't mind if I don't get blooms right away so flowers come second to my veggies.

More later and I will have new photos too.
Happy Gardening

Teeny Tiny Peppers

These are two of four that I potted up. The peppers took a long time to germinate. It was several weeks between the time I potted these up and took their photo to the last of the seedlings. I now have 6 good looking sweet pepper mix peppers potted up and also 6 frying pepper peppers ready to be potted up. They finally germinated a few days ago.

Tomato Babies

It is hard to tell but these are tomato seedlings. Again these photos were taken weeks ago. The ones on the left are Romas and the right ones are Juliets. Of course right now that they are transplanted into larger pots I did not get them marked and can't tell what one is what. Dah! Note to self mark them right away.

Cucumber seedlings

This photo is a few weeks old. These two seedlings are Armenian Cucumbers. They are similar to English Cucumbers so it will be interesting to see how they do here. I now have 6 pots of these started. These two are now looking much different. I will post more recent photos of them later on.

Seed planting day

Well today I planted some seeds for the vegetable garden. On Saturday I attended my first Kitchen Garden group meeting. At this meeting we swapped seeds. It was with the understanding to do a study of the vegetables started and planted as well as save the seeds. Texas is losing its seed companies so this maybe the only way we will get seeds in the future. I planted 3 Sweet Bell Pepper Mix, 3 Italian Frying Pepper and 4 Purple Husk Tomatoes. I also planted 6 Valencia Tomatoes. These are orange and from what I hear are very tasty. Time will tell. I will keep you all informed on my progress with these seeds. I planted my Celebrity tomato seeds last week. For a bottom heat source I had them in my oven with the light on so that they would be under a constant heat. Our house has one propane heater so the days can be warm but nights are chilly. That isn't very good for starting seeds. With this method I am using now there seems to be some sprouting of the tomato seeds. Also at the meeting on Saturday I learned a trick to set up a under heat source for starting seeds that is far more affordable then a heat mat and will cover more surface. What you do is take a fluorescent light fixture and hang it upside down under you wire shelf. It should be a few inches from the shelf. The lights should produce enough heat to get your seed off to a good start. The person who shared this idea with us said her temp was approximately 70 degrees.