Category Archives: Varieties

Not a boa constrictor.

Oh, gee, it’s nibbling my knee.

Oh, my, it’s up to my thigh.

Oh, fiddle, it’s up to my middle.

Oh, heck… it’s past my neck.

The sweet corn is taller than I am and tasseling.

Is tasseling a verb?

The words are all a-jumble most of the day most days right now. When they arrange into a harmonic pattern, I listen and grab a pencil before the mirage shifts into sands again. Or something. You know. You know?

My youngest and I tested the size of the fingerlings last weekend. Adorable. Another week to this weekend and whatever size they are they’re coming out for Mother’s Day.

And would y’all tell the onions to hurry up? I don’t need the space but now I’m just worried they’ll cook or rot or dehydrate before the tops topple. (Toppling is definitely a verb.)

The popcorn is still shorter. It had a later start. It’s shading carrots and black-eyed peas.

The cherry tomatoes have started, the green beans have had their third harvest and we’re on about an every-other-day harvest there. No squash is making it larger than a pinky. It is pretty shady there… the cucumbers, too.

The Tiger Eye dry beans are setting but the mystery ones aren’t blooming yet.

Did you know you can eat cilantro flowers? They aren’t bitter like the leaves after the bolt. A little citrusy maybe.

I’m rambling. The calendula bloomed again. I’m drying the blossom. Maybe for tea. Along with the stevia, mint, and mullein for tea.

Ok ok. Back to your regularly scheduled scrolling.

“It’s just survival”

“Do you want to get away to the garden for a bit?“

It’s a kind question. An offer. The answer is yes (always, always, always yes.) I extract myself from limbs, ceding my space as headrest, blanket, octopus, to him.

I take the dog, who is missing his ‘brother,’ and am ‘caught’ by the dog catcher for not having him on leash before he attempts to elevate his lead butt into the back of the car. I assure her I have the leash and am simply getting him in the car. She is nonplussed. I don’t actually care.

There’s one other gardener when we arrive. Parked where I park. I park by a different gate.

I hear a drill. A hammer. I gather my remembered things, check my mask, and I see him. His plots are across from one of mine, between my two. He’s constructing a gate.

When it’s time to switch plots and we plod by, I comment on the rabbits. “It’s just survival” he says. I nod, agreeing that everything has a stomach. He chortles.

And we’re done. Back to our attempted solitude, shared.

It begins to rain. I haven’t remembered the right tool to cut the Brussels’ trunks. I go about removing sad leaves and harvesting what’s left. The rain increases. Tucked in a ball, low and small, the Brussels sprouts’ canopy shelters me mostly from the angled drops. I continue.

A whine. A soft, slow not-whimper. I look over. My dog is melting. Trying not to, attempted stoicism, but failure.

I pack up, trek my refuse to the compost bin, and load my grateful pooch into the back, with a leash, but with a running start.

Shifting times.

The obvious, obviously. But also the end of the broccoli, cabbage, and cauli and the start of the beans, squash, and corn.

I hope the Brussels stick around awhile. It’ll depend on the cabbage fly, I imagine.

I forgot when I sowed the potatoes and need to check so I know when to plan their replacements. Anyone remember?

The tunnel behind them is for the melon that still needs to sprout…

I’m not sure why I feel summers here don’t have the varieties winters do. Summers are fine with peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, okra, southern peas, and Malabar spinach. Perhaps it’s the abundance of variety of greens that grow in the winters that feels different.

This mid-season for growing in Central Texas isn’t quite “spring” but will all die off before the dead center of summer. The melons, potatoes, beans, squash, corn, cucumbers, and others will have to run fast to beat the heat and don’t always make it. This is the season I still haven’t learned as intimately as I’d like. The moving target of climate change doesn’t help!

Long you’ve slept.

I’ve been dividing seeds to share. Finding and finding my seeds. I grew these once, (nearly if not) ten years ago.

Testing germination was a first for me. “Sow and see” was more for me. But these are for others. They might be counting on them. So sow and see has a new meaning.

Tiger eye beans are beautiful dried beans that taste akin to pinto. With more depth, as garden-grown food is known to do.

They’re an heirloom, as I try for most of my seeds to be, either officially or simply in age. If you’d like to grow some soup beans, I can’t recommend these enough for flavor, production, and now also I can say longevity of seed vitality. They’re on Seed Savers Exchange.

https://www.seedsavers.org/tigers-eye-bean

Overlook.

Too small to see yet are the Red Russian Kale, Lacinto, and carrot sprouts. The spinach is hiding to the right of the post.

Freshly compost mulched and watered: the bigger cabbages, broccoli, Brussels, rutabaga, and some peas not perpetually topped by the rabbits.

It was a glorious weekend and this garden visit capped it off nicely.

On the fence.

Another freeze is expected tomorrow night. High 20s. Do I cover the green beans again?

Last time the got some burn. They are flowering now. They’ll likely burn, covered, again. And need a bit of time to try and fruit, again.

I got called a softy, again, today. He wasn’t wrong 😉

So I’ll likely cover them, again. And hope, again, for a long enough stretch of warm sunshine for a green bean bite, or three.

At least until the onions arrive and the brassicae transplants demand more space and the green beans surrender.

Glut

Tis the season…

We’ve long since lost track of the harvest. Pounds and pounds every few days. To snack, in curries, in tacos, to family, cabreses, to work, to friends, to the birds. Still they march on, and no one complains.

Guatemalan blue banana squash is new for me this year. It’s getting cozy with the volunteer sunflowers.

As one of the varieties of cow peas (with orange blossoms!) gets cozy with the volunteer amaranth.

Last week, this bean was cozy with the hose. After a week away on vacay, I’d say they’re more than cozy.

Tomorrow, I hope for uninterrupted TV time – a rarity in my home. (Go USA!) But I have plans for the long commercial break at half time…