Category Archives: Varieties

Making space

In February of 2011, I cleared out my 100 square foot garden. I ripped the grass, dug three feet down removing weed seeds, grass roots, and June bug larvae. DH built the edging to keep the crawling St. Augustine and Bermuda at bay, anchoring the edging with posts with which to anchor shade cloth and bean string.

In January of 2012, I rented two plots in the local community garden. My 100 square feet in which to garden jumped to 500 over night. By May of this year, I realized that community gardening, or at least gardening with that community, wasn’t for me.

Even with my stark lack of gardening this year so far, dropping from 500 square feet back to 100 was a bit of a blow. So what’s one to do? Whine and lament the attitudes and personalities of those who made it necessary to leave the extra 400 square feet behind? Nah. That doesn’t solve anything. Unless there’s a complaint quota necessary for being human that I don’t know about…it would solve that.

One makes space.

Shannon over at Dirt ‘n Kids has shared her success with a similar climate to mine using Lasagna Gardening. August is not the time to be digging 36″ down through clay and pebbles to make a new bed. I wanted to grow more seedlings of self-saved broccoli seeds (Green Early Heirloom) and Amazing Cauliflower. I wanted to try my hand at some Ruby Moon Hyacinth Beans and Sugar Ann peas. And then…you get the idea.

I dug in the garage for a box. I must’ve had this same urge ages ago when I first stumbled upon Shannon’s blog, because there was a large cardboard box containing untreated brown packing paper, a neighbor’s discarded leaf bag, and smaller segments of lesser-chemical-ed cardboard eagerly awaiting the day.

I needed boards and screws. DH had gathered a neighbor’s discarded decking for my compost bin and had some extra pieces. I found some excess ends of 2″x4″‘s left over from his saw-horse project. Exterior screws were shelved beside the drywall screws, eye hooks, and other fasteners. I had to choose – 1″ 1/4″ dry wall screws or 4″ exterior screws. I knew the 1″ 1/4″ were too short to bite in properly, and may not weather the outdoors very well. I grabbed the 4″ exterior screws.

I didn’t feel like measuring. So many things in life must be weighed and measured, exact and equal. I find gardening to be good practice for my (slightly obsessive) need for accuracy and organization to let go and see that the world doesn’t collapse. The earth and the bugs and the microbes know infinitely more about what they’re doing than I do. The practice of letting them do what they do is soothing in a culture that glorifies busy-ness and demands constant multi-tasking.

I made thicker sides by putting two boards together, locking them in place with cross boards. The 2″x4″s were to serve as the corner anchors. I started the assembly…and learned that while too-short screws don’t work well, neither do too-long screws. I didn’t mind that they stuck out. I rationalized the tops would be great places to lash string ends. What I didn’t know was that a too-long screw won’t pull two boards together, it will leave them with a gap. Frustration set in. I went inside and was done for the day.

Letting the frustration go, armed with my new knowledge, I picked up a box of 2″ exterior screws and went about the business of removing a 4″ screw, replacing it with a 2″ screw, and repeating my way around the box. The boards cinched together and the box was square. I dug four quick holes to sink the corner posts into the earth. One full of pebbles, one blocked by a concrete over-pour, the other two easy. The bed lowered into place, it was ready for soil-making magic.

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I had already saved up some trimmings and egg cartons, some hay and compost. I’d even saved it in layers (you can see it behind the bed frame.) It was as simple as cutting loose a strip of layered goodies, carefully lifting it off the ground, and nestling it in the wooden frame.
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So I’m not sure how much square footage I gained. I’m ok with that. I’m also ok with the fact that the stump of the maple tree we had to cut down in the front yard has finally bit the dust. Giant sponges of carbon to start the fungal map off right made themselves available the very evening I needed them. The creation of a suburban forest floor.

I put up the drill and the skill saw. I wrapped and tied the extension cord. The shovel and buckets in hand, it was time to go in. DH had made some grass-fed burger patties and Cinderella squash discs on the grill.

And there it was. A forgotten carrot lost beneath the returning basil offering up spring’s sowings.
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Pleasant surprises

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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…
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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.
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A neglected garden trudges on…

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

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

Stolen moments

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I made it to the garden after office work and before working more at home with just enough daylight to grab this guy. (And likely just a day or two before he bolted.)

Starting again.

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Left to right: Beets you can hardly see for the sunshine, kale the cabbage loopers haven’t found yet, cimmaron lettuce sprouts shimmering, and onion starts leaning away from the wind.

Heat bed in the misty morning.

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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.

Short ‘n sweet.

This little Lemon Basil (success at growing basil from seed! finally!) has enjoyed the shade of the carrot greens while adapting to the ways of the outside world.

These two characters made me laugh when I saw them. It takes some special kind of talent to hang from the very thing you’re eating.

I used to pull the snails when I found them, dropping them in soapy water or taking them down to the pond. Then upon closer observation I noticed they left all of my food alone, and spent their time devouring the spent vines, the decomposing leaves, and the other not-quite-yet-composted goodies on the surface. Since then, I’ve left them to their own devices in the garden. Hopefully they’re not the ones responsible for the Squash Disappearing Act?

Summer hasn’t quit yet.

The peppers have slowed down, but aren’t done yet. Just the other day a purple bell pepper joined some carrots and other veggies for a lunch saute.

In making room for new fall veggies, it was time to pull some old timers.

Of course, once I sowed the next round of carrots, it started raining. Forget rain dances, if you need it to rain at your house just have me over to sow some carrot seeds! (The last four times I’ve sown carrots now, it’s rained long and hard within days.)

I didn’t pull all of the carrots though. Some are still small enough to make a late appearance on my plate, and others I’ve let go wild to both see what happens and collect seed. Like these two:

Umm…oops?

This summer I tried to start my fall veggies indoors in June and July so I could get a headstart on the fall garden even with temperatures still much too hot. With mixed results, it’s something I’ll definitely do again next year with some new information and more experience under my belt.

One of the veggies I did this with was squash. Various varieties of mostly summer squash went into my seed trays, came up, and reached for the window. They even bloomed a bit before I had a chance to get them outside.

I put eight in the ground.

Two were gone the next day. Completely wilted into the surface of the soil.

Two were gone the second day. Completely demolished by some tiny hungry belly.

The other four went the way of the first four sometime that week.

Not wanting to turn the other seedlings out for such a certain fate, I kept them alive in their seed tray on the porch. A previously unsprouted seed burst forth. They didn’t mind the heat so long as they got their water each morning. I knew this wasn’t going to be a permanent solution, so I went in search of one. Books. Articles. Blogposts. More books. Finally I went back to the seed packets. Generic instructions on all the seed packets save for the ones from Baker Creek which read: “…start a couple of weeks earlier indoors, but never let squash transplants become rootbound, and do not distrub the roots in transplanting.”

Oops.

These transplants had definitely become rootbound, and as a results, their roots were definitely disturbed during transplanting. Lesson learned for next year.

In the meantime, I still needed an attempt at saving the transplants I still had. The very-rootbound transplants. So rootbound that the seed tray had become more of a 2″x9″x13″ soilmat held together by roots. (I already said, “oops” twice, but I’ll say it again – oops!) DH had the lightbulb moment I was looking for. Plant the mat!

So I carefully loosened the mat from the pan, laid it in a shallow hole, and let it soak in. Let the survival of the fittest begin!

Update: They’re all dead. All nine of them chomped to the ground in the night.