Before the freeze…

Dec15

The ice (or snow, or both) that gripped so much of the country only gave a whisper of ice to those of us in Central Texas. Just the same, we had multiple nights in the 20s and a full 48 hours that didn’t rise above freezing. There were preparations to be done. The first of which? Capturing some final photos before the greenery melted and the flowers were zapped from their stems.

In came the African Blue Basil…

Last year after the harvest, I left the roots in the soil in an attempt to maintain any microbial web they’d built in the soil. I was rewarded in the spring with a returning specimen. Fingers crossed for the same this spring…

The rosemary in the background didn’t even shiver, but the butterfly weed has lost all vigor. Others I’ve pruned into the compost now that they’ve finished the cycle.

Texas Hummingbird Sage

Sage

Lantana

Snap dragon

Berries

The bees will surely miss the loss of so many winter blossoms. I will miss the bees until their return after a few sleepy months.

This one barely barely blinked with each passing freeze. I’ve forgotten its name – does anyone know?
Purple

Perhaps it will keep any wakeful bees busy enough until the reemergence of nectar pots…

And Bill the Lime Tree came inside, complete with two limes left to savor when the winter doldrums set in.
Bill

Herbs out front

Sep11

These days my gardening is in very short bursts before my ankle forces me back inside to the couch with an elevated boot. I planted a cauliflower and a broccoli yesterday. Just one of each. Today I was going to sow some peas and zinnias. I packed my bucket (the handle can be held in the same hand as a crutch – the only way to transport something these days) with the seeds from my office, the trowel from the garage, and the labels from the toolbox…and that was it. So let’s see what else I can do from this here couch…

I’m a sucker for plants (and seeds, and…yeah. “Hi, my name is Plumdirt, and I’m a plant-a-holic.) This leads to either more pots on my small front “porch” than agrees with my aesthetic or dead plants in their starter containers because I ran out of time to plant them.

When DH picked up a new Thai basil this year, we were bumping up against the latter and needed to find it a home quickly. Enough shade to survive, enough water to grow, and enough space to branch out. In our small yard, there weren’t many options. I plopped it into the first piece of earth that seemed to fit the bill and waited.

It just so happens to catch the run-off from a lot of the roof. It also soaks up the near-constant drip of the AC condenser drain in the summer. It might be too swampy. It might be just right.

Now whenever I open the garage door for a shovel, or to rotate laundry, or let loose the lawn mower, it gets bumped by the door and a fresh waft of Thai basil swirls through the air to my nose.

Serendipitous planting is oft times my favorite sort.

Put your feet up…

Sep2

I had many plans for today. Beans and peas in the soil. Brassica family starts from the farmer’s market into the shady new bed…

Plans are funny things. I like plans. Perhaps as much as I like surprises. (I make sense. Promise.) I do well with plans or surprises. I do not do so well with plans that change or fall through or are otherwise lost. In becoming aware over the years of this facet of myself, I’ve found ways around it, or through it, or on occasion, standing straight up in it until it passes overhead like a thundercloud threatening that never delivers. So today is not full of digging in the earth. Nor is it full of getting ready for a short work week. Or making a blackberry pie as planned for a Labor Day Feast.

Why?

Well, let’s just say that instead, I’m holed up on the sofa, crutches close at hand. My ankle lost last night in a soccer match against a leg stronger than mine. Thankfully it wasn’t broken. I went down this same road almost fifteen years ago now. Air cast. Ice. Elevate. Aggravate your other leg’s knee with your hopping about because I’m-only-going-right-there-and-don’t-need-crutches-for-such-a-short-distance.

So instead, I’ll say hello to you all. I’ll draft the plans for the brassica and other winter garden tenants, maybe. I’ll see if there’s a leftover Premier League match on the internet, maybe. I’ll poke at the swelling, definitely. And I’ll ponder on how a work week will look with only manual transmission cars at my disposal…

I did manage a few things before becoming a one-legged-stubborn-hopper…I made a sidewalk.

When we first moved here, the 6″ wide strip between the sidewalk and the house was full of St. Augustine. Mowing and edging 6″ of grass seemed silly. Out it came. The grocery store had soft fuzzy sage specimens for $4. I picked up two. One went in this strip of soil to be baked in its concrete confines and watered rarely. It housed an Anole (who has since moved to the compost pile) and provided shade to the toads. It also grew from about 6″ tall and 3″ wide to about 3′ tall and 5′ wide. Oops? DH has been missing the sidewalk (that leads to the back patio, that houses the grill, that rains down delicious food like mana from the sky) so I figured it was time to make a sidewalk.

In so doing, I found a few things. I found another melon growing on the vine that gave me this delicious morsel.

I found a spinach bouquet where I had forgotten I’d sown spinach.

And then I realized I needed someplace to put the large cubic volume of sage. The garden could use a little mulch…but I’d lost the battle against the mealybugs for the tomatoes and didn’t want to mulch them in for the winter…so out they came.

And in went the sage mulch.

I’m hoping the strong smell of the sage will confuse any leftover mealybugs enough that they don’t move in on my peppers (hiding in the sage). I feel like each August is a battle against the mealybugs. Last August I won. This August I lost. Year before I won. Year before they did…perhaps next year will be mine again.

Bees and seeds

Aug13

DH and I were talking about the internet the other day. These days, it’s hard to “run out of internet.” There is so much of it to begin with, in addition to the social aspect, the interactive pieces, and the dangerous Bermuda triangle that is Wikipedia that it’s easy enough to waste away an afternoon just click-click-clicking.

When we first met, you could still quite easily “run out of internet.” If you ran out of questions you needed answered or topics to read up on, you were done. That, and there just wasn’t the sheer volume of content on the internet then that there is now, never mind any social media rabbit holes to fall down.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet. I work on it all day. I use it on my phone exponentially more often than I use my phone to actually call people. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been out with friends, someone has forgotten the name of a movie or street of a restaurant recommendation and the comment has been made: “You know, you have a phone for that. Look it up.”

I just wonder how much of our lives might be spent doing time-wasting things that don’t do anything or help us be anything. When I’m sixty, I won’t remember that funny meme I just saw. Or maybe I will. But I hope I have more memories of people and moments and adventures than I do of content I witnessed through a screen. (I’m rambling. Through a screen.)

However, I love gardening for how it roots me back down to what I do love about the internet. The blanket flowers bloom nearly year-round in my garden. They attract the honey and bumble bees, the birds and the butterflies. Recently, they attracted a new bee in a shiny black coat that I didn’t know. I pulled out my phone, searched, and learned right there in my garden – a carpenter’s bee.

Then, if I so desired, I could dig more deeply and possibly discover which of the 500 possible species of carpenter’s bee had paid a visit to my flower bed. Or not. (I chose not.)

The other sort of learning I love best about gardening, is the learning of discovery. Experiential knowledge has always stayed in my brain much more concretely than other sorts. I’d known about onions. I’d known about their blossoms. I’d known about their seeds. What I hadn’t known was how their blossoms transformed into seeds. Did the seeds come with parachutes like dandelions and lettuce? Did they come in shells akin to sunflowers? Nope. They grow in pods more like larkspur and flax. Now just to learn how to get onions from young sprout to sturdy start…

Napoleon turns ten!

Aug7

Napoleon was one of the first gifts I gave DH. It was 2003 and I was puttering around with my mother. I forget why she was there (tea, perhaps) but I was along for the ride and lost in the succulents section. The 2″ pots were calling to me. Full of miniature foliage covered in attitude and machismo, they were too cute. One in particular was of a variety I had never seen before. DH is a fan of variegated greenery and so I thought to bring it home as a surprise.

Napoleon was named as such due to his size and attitude. At a mere 2″ tall, he would still attack your fingers with gusto if you ventured too close. That, and he was quite the adventurer. He went cliff diving once (knocked off the edge of the sink and into a depth of soapy water) only to respond with an impressive growth spurt. He rode across the country in August in the back of a pick-up through death valley without batting an eye. He’s been forgotten outside in a freeze, left un-watered for months, and only repotted on a whim.

What’s he up to now? Well, kind of outgrowing his name for starters…

Pleasant surprises

Aug4

I like surprises. I’ve claimed to like surprises for years. I still make that claim. I don’t often feel the need to specify that I like pleasant surprises. I jump in movies when things jump out at you. Enough so that those around me usually get a good chuckle (as do I when I’m settled back in my seat.) I never mean that I like those surprises…

What kind then? Well, the surprise carnations after a long week or the mid-afternoon coffee delivery during an eight hour meeting. Those kind I definitely like. I also like certain garden-variety surprises (pun! ha!)

This spring was possibly the best spring for gardening in Central Texas since I started gardening here five years ago in pots on a balcony. Unfortunately, it was possibly the worst spring for me for gardening since then as well. With everything working out how it did, most of my garden successes this summer are pleasant surprises.

A generational photo. The ornamental (so I’m told) Fiery Chili overwintered last winter, a little worse for the wear on the left. Rewarding my philosophy of “I don’t recognize that as weed or purposeful plant, I’ll let it grow” the chilies that dropped off in the freezes have made new offspring for the season.

I attempted to grow Butterfly Weed season after season, year after year, and on the actual final seeds in the packet, I finally managed to grow butterfly weed (last year.) It went to seed last fall. I gathered up the giant wishers (butterfly weed seeds resemble dandelion seeds, if dandelion seeds took steroids.) I tossed them to the breeze. This year the original plant returned to bloom again, along with four new specimens nearby.

The bramble or berry? I pruned it down to two main shoots as suggested. Within the week it had short nubby sprouts in the leaf stem armpits. One of which thought to test the air for pollen.

DH is a fan of basil with hints (or brazen) flavors of anise. Thai basil tops the list for him. Last year we purchased a small African Blue Basil with an anise nose from our local Green and Growing. It fell off in the frost and I pruned it to the ground. My thought being that the root system would feed the soil and bring joy to the microbes and fungal map. I did not expect it to return…the bees are ever grateful that it did.

And in remembering last year’s bumper crop of surprise acorn squash, I did not expect any acorns again this year as we hadn’t eaten any (to create a seed supply in the compost) since the last crop. I’d thought this little volunteer was a summer squash variety…

Volunteer Avocado the 9th. I though to dig him up and pot him last fall, to bring inside with his brethren. I thought further. I already had six his size in pots, not to mention Elian and the middle-sized one. I left him to fend for himself. Fend he did. We had multiple nights last winter hit 24 degrees Fahrenheit and while suffering a little leaf burn, he came back. He’s been frozen, eaten, and burned, and here he stands. Not the most handsome of arborly fellows, but certainly one of the more stubborn.

June the Plum Tree

Jun9

Last year was her first year with us. A celebratory gift for DH getting all A’s for the year. She lives in a straw-topped pot on the back patio.

The birds beat us to the first ones yesterday. Today, we knew better. Ten delicious sweet globular candies are now on my counter…make that eight…

Or seven…

A neglected garden trudges on…

May31

After six weeks of zero garden time, but thankfully also six weeks of oddly regular rainfall, it was time to take stock of the gardens in early April.

The previously un-sprouted kale had sprouted…to feed the snails.

The beans (green and soup, alike) had mostly kicked the bucket – seemingly before ever growing the feet necessary with which to do so…looks like I’ll be buying more green bean seeds as self-saving doesn’t work when you lose every plant.

So while our table was set for more grocery trips than last year, we weren’t without pleasant surprises. This spring has been a lesson in success in spite of (or perhaps due to) neglect.

The nasturtiums never minded the lack of attention. Their sowing directly along the walkway to the front door helped them survive an infestation of leaf-footed bugs through diligent squishing by DH (thank you!) They’re just about done these days, but in their prime reached two feet across and more than a foot tall.

The butterfly bush came back just fine, or should I say never really left? It’s been battling aphids, mostly on its own, and is also almost done for the season now, but here it was early April.

I forget this lovely lady’s name. I wasn’t expecting her back after the winter, but am glad she returned.

The grocery store had snapdragons on clearance for $0.98. I’d always loved snapdragons. Making their mouths open and shut as a child. Watching bumble bees pry open their mouths to get at the pollen and get pinched in their jaws only to extract themselves with a little extra yellow on their coats. I wasn’t sure it would make it. I wasn’t sure it would survive the winter. I wasn’t sure of much, but for $0.98 I was sure I was going to see what would happen.

And then it was time for the surprises. I’d sown untold numbers of seeds into the Hot Bed. Seeing what would take, seeing what wouldn’t. Seeing what would start and stop, or grow but not blossom. Delayed gratification. Pleasant surprises. Anticipation and future glee were the name of the game.

These guys I had no clue on when they started. They grew taller, spindlier. They put on buds, and then paused. Finally, one morning, they appeared as red lipstick tips and by the time the sun broke the clouds, they were ready to reveal themselves.

Scarlet Flax

This one I hoped was what I thought it was. I was fairly certain after years spent on grassy knolls in Oregon that I knew this one. As soon as the bud formed, I was 99% sure, and when it opened, I’m pretty sure I either jumped for joy or clapped my hands…or both.

But enough about the front yard. The backyard was up to its own mischief…

Three months later…

May27

Hello, world.

How have you been?

I’ve thought of you.

Let’s catch up a little, shall we? Over coffee, perhaps?

Last I left this story, it was four days before our wedding. The wedding was perfect. The most relaxing, beautiful, amazing, there-aren’t-enough-positive-adjectives-for-it perfect day. For all my want for eloping leading up to the day itself, I think everyone should have such glorious days full of love more often. Who’s to say we shouldn’t re-marry our spouses every year?

We headed to a lake house for the weekend after.

There were untold numbers of air plants in the trees.

And the blue bonnets were just getting started…

The fruit trees were putting on a show (apple? cherry? I have forgotten how to tell…)

The sunsets were lovely, and enjoyed sipping hot cocoa.

Then it was back to the real world, and six weeks of travel for work. Emptying the luggage into the washing machine, transferring to the drier, and then folding and putting back into the luggage for another trip. Needless to say, the garden took a back seat…

Heat bed in the misty morning.

Oct17

My first attempt at a landscape bed makes me smile. The fragrant mimosa has grown as tall as I am. I missed the part about it having thorns though. Fortunately, the wind blows east most days on our street, which encourages the branches to leave the walkway open by growing up and away from it. The Mexican Bush Sage has not lost the blossoms it put on in May. The orange fellows nearly died seven times this summer but perked up each time I noticed their distress. The Moss Verbena I accidentally ended with an over-zealous weeding, and the only surviving…I forget… has more than quintupled in size and has just put on the most delicate of purple blossoms. Now there are African marigolds putting on buds and other flowers sprouted, yet to reveal their nature. Mostly, this bed makes me smile for the overgrown beside the empty. The thorns near the delicate. And also, because quite by accident, I learned something about myself – apparently I like purple and orange together.

plumdirt

Putting in a little

Category Archives: Not Vegetables