Losing the light.

Sep14

As the sunlight left the sky to brighten another’s day, the street lights came on and the critters came out. (Why yes, I did consider a light jacket for the chilly 72 degrees.)

Assessing the cardboard stash.

Sep1

Not even halfway through the stash, but I’m not sure I have enough even so. But it’s a start. One of the benefits of moving to a new place: lots of material to reuse.

Flowers from afar.

Aug28

We went to Juneau in July to visit DH’s best friend. A day out to see beautiful Tracy Arm (14 hours on a boat but we got to see whales and glaciers and seals, oh my!) and the Peanut was a champ. A day of hiking abandoned mining towns, taking a tram to a mountain top, hiking said mountain top, and then a day where DH went fishing and the little one and I traipsed about downtown Juneau to pick up some gifts, take in a berry crepe, and see the sights of a cutesy downtown. Juneau has some lovely flora in July…

Does anyone know the name of the lovely rosy orange flowers above?

Or the funny pink ones?

That also come in purple.

Any guesses on the name of the fuzzy white ones?

These look like strawflowers to me, unless strawflowers have a more appropriate name…

So cheerful for being upside down.

August, nearly gone.

Aug22

Things I find hard to believe these days:
– August is nearly over
– How mild this summer has been
– How envious (and grateful) I am of (for) other people’s gardens and the fact that they share
– What starting from scratch looks like with this much space

I’m sorry, summer is almost over? When did that happen? And what kind of “summer” has this been for Texas, you ask? A ridiculously mild one. Here’s a graphic from last year around mid-July.
100degrees
Keep in mind, that was mid-August, and by the end of the summer in 2011, we had had a stretch of 100 or more degrees that lasted 27 days, with a total of 90 days over 100 degrees that year.
By the same time in July this year? Zero 100 degree days. It was glorious.

Other people’s gardens (and farms) have been keeping us in delicious squash, peppers, tomatoes, melon, peaches, greens, beets, and various other goodies…like blackberries.

And so the planning begins in earnest. Trying to recall through the fog left behind by our adorable sleep thief which fall veggies to sow when and wondering if I can push things around to fit into the timeline of still needing to actually build the beds. I pull out my fall garden seeds to see what I want to sow this year. Of course the answer is “all of them.” We’ll see how that goes. Also, I don’t think I can justify buying any fall garden seeds this year…

But I can read through one of my favorite gardening books while I plan how to maximize space, balanced with aesthetics, keeping in mind that a 5′ wide bed was wider than I could reach to the center of at the last house.

And try and make it to the library for a book on monarch gardening (unless one of you clever folks knows of a useful website on the topic?) After listening to a piece on the radio about their continued decline due to Round Up (and other chemical) usage on GMO crops in the Midwest taking out their larval food, I’m reminded that not only do I want food for the bees, but for the butterflies as well. I’ve seen a tiger swallow tail or two, and we have about 25 resident dragon flies practicing maneuvers each evening in the backyard, but no Monarchs. We’re in their migratory flight path, and every species I know of likes road trip food. Just because they can’t knock on my door and ask for food doesn’t mean I shouldn’t feed them.

Hopefully there will be some “breaking ground” posts in the next month or so. In the meantime, thanks for keeping up on your own blogs to keep me excited for y’all and inspired for the work to come.

Final harvest

Jul13

Signing over the lease last night, I checked on the garden. The lettuce had long since bolted and gone to seed. The tomatoes and peppers were on round three, and everything was looking quite unkempt. As it should. It had not been keep in months aside from random rain and occasional soaking.

The strawberries, long since done for the year, were still alive at least…and joined by a new friend: ANOTHER volunteer avocado tree. This guy wasn’t there three months ago.

We picked our last pickings from the old garden yesterday. Leaving quite the number of Porter and San Marzano ripe on the vine for the new caretakers’ instant gratification, we brought home the ripe Black Prince, Cal Wonder Goldens, a handful of Porters, some jalapenos and Serranos.

Thankfully we’ve been making it to the market most Saturdays (previous two excluded) and enjoying the bounty of others as well.

It will be some time before we have home grown food again around here from our own home. Until then, thank goodness for farmers near and far keeping us in fruit and veggies (and meat and eggs!)

A peek at the new ‘scape.

Jun28

I managed to weed the three front flower beds the other day during a particularly well-timed (and lengthy) nap, leaving the little yellow flower all the room it could hope for. I’ll need to prune the roses, as they’re a bit leggy and poking their way onto the walk. Rose pruning where I grew up was in September. I have a feeling it’s different here. I’ll have to look unless any of you knowledgeable folk (who seem to have evacuated my area to cooler climes!) might know?

I’ve yet to mow (which I am looking forward to, I’ve always loved mowing) so am finding myself with a solid grasp of where the St. Augustine stops and the crab grass begins. I’ve been eyeing the wind and the shadows, the rain run off and the lengthy hours of sun. Hopefully by the end of summer when I start to build some beds I will have decided on the best spots, but only time will tell.

We’ve been having cooler temperatures (only low 90s most days) and it’s actually rained at least once a week it seems for the past long while. The fire flies started in late April and are still glowing their way through thickets and underbrush. I first saw them this year the day before I became a mother. I told the child in me that they’d better hurry up or they’d miss the fire flies this year. She definitely hurried up and here we are, two months later, and while she cannot yet see them herself, I still point them out on our evening walk. I await the squeals of glee next year when she sees one for the first time.

Meanwhile, in our new neighborhood…

Jun22

The gardening is much more interesting a mere few miles east from our last neighborhood. The variety of flowers, the number of backyards with veggies (and roosters) and then there’s this backyard off the greenbelt…what will they do with all that corn?

I’m even more excited to plan our home’s transformation from suburban grass and shrub into something more our style.

Thoughtful goodbyes and new beginnings…

Jun12

We moved on Monday. First of all, packing (and attempting to unpack) with a six week old who is just learning to be laid down for longer than ten minutes without melting…is an adventure. We’re making progress with a lot of creative problem solving and gratitude for grandparental help.

Saying goodbye to my first real outside garden is a mixed bag. It’s full of green tomatoes and baby peppers. The soup beans are only half-dried on the vine. The garlic aren’t done.

But the strawberries are done, the lettuce has bolted, and the three year old beets may actually be done giving us greens…

And the new house has so much space to play in…so much potential. Forget the 100 square foot bed I built, I could have ten of them! And still have room for DH’s miniature fruit orchard, a grass pad, and a kiddie pool.

So please join me, in a near-final farewell to this garden before I embark on the prepping and planning involved in turning a blank slate into happy beds full of tasty food.

The sage that wouldn’t die. We planted this 4″ sage in six inches of soil with a concrete foundation on one side and a sidewalk on the other, that bakes in the afternoon sun. It grew to take over the sidewalk and break three feet in height. DH chopped it down. It looks nice and happy again already.

Serrano peppers amidst the tomato jungle.

Some San Marzano tomatoes waiting to ripen.

One of many bell pepper plants getting busy…

The jalapenos spicing things up.

The lettuce (red romaine, cimmaron, little gem, and others) getting ready for next year.

Then we move to the front yard…

Delicate lavender.

Moss verbena making a go of it.

I forget this one’s name…

I won’t be around to see if this zinnia actually survives the heat long enough to bloom. (Or if the new tenants water it to give it a chance.)

The nasturtiums usually grow, flower, and finish up months prior. I’m not holding out hope this one will bloom…oh who am I kidding, of course I am!

Don’t worry, Bill the Lime came with us. (Although he’s pretty upset after that surprise freeze we got late in the season while we were out of town. We’ll need to give him a lot of love and a good pruning.

The raspberry bush (that doesn’t make raspberries) also came along. Perhaps putting it in the ground will make it bloom?

Oscar the Meyer lemon tree will hopefully not mind the move and give us some tasty treats in a few months.

The rue, ruefully, had to stay.

I haven’t seen another Mexican oregano for sale since I picked this one up nearly five years ago. I’ll have to try my hand at sourcing (and sowing) some from seed.

I did save extra seeds from my butterfly weed, so the new house will get to enjoy these “orange molar flowers” as DH calls them.

The fragrant mimosa decided to put out a late round of blooms (it blooms months ago as well) with all the rain and unseasonably cool (read: low 80s during the day, high 60s at night – downright chilly! And long gone. We’re into days in the mid 90s and nights in the high 70s now, and we’ll continue to rise another 10 degrees on both the high and the low.)