Travel companions.

We’re looking at dates now. Perhaps we leave in a month. Perhaps longer. In all the planning there is, planning which plants to try and bring, which to give away, and who, if anyone, is eager to garden-sit… is quite overwhelming.

The three blackberries will go to a friend. The potted plum to my in-laws. Perhaps they’d like the blueberries, too.

Do you think this giant chard would mind two weeks in damp newspapers if I gave it a severe haircut first?

Napoleon will come with us. He first made the voyage here with us seventeen years ago as a little 1” specimen.

I’m tempted to harvest tomatoes green and wrap them in paper. A book I’ve just received discusses the method as a winter storage option. Surely it’s possible for any green tomatoes you might need to pick early.

The onions started falling over, so I’m starting their curing in batches. Trying this, learning that, one group of toppled tops at a time.

And then there are the carrots to pickle and the cucumbers to… pickle. Perhaps some dry beans will dry in time.

But I believe these are the last of my seeds I’ll sow for awhile. And I’ll never eat the sweet potatoes, okra, or melon on their way. I hope the popcorn finish as we’re ready to pack them in, and that the sweet corn make a delicious farewell feast appearance.

I’ll not count the gardens I’ve started and said goodbye to. I’ll remember this one as the best yet and the breeding ground for making home-farm dreams seem achievable. And I’ll miss it dearly, idyllically, forgetting the summer’s blasting heat coming and the bare earth during planting’s “winter” in the dead of July and August.

Shifting times.

Mar24

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!

Sharecrow.

Sep27

A scarecrow, in a field of corn, to keep the birds at bay.

A sharecrow, in rows of beans, to feed them come what may.

I’m reading a book. I’ve forgotten the name in my currently foggy (“thick as peanut butter!” / “you mean pea soup!” / “you eat what you like and I’ll eat what I like!” ) brain. It tells of learning of farming from observation, documentation, and old timers.

One old timer the author learned from spoke of feeding the crows when the corn seedlings were small, so they left the sprouts alone until they were big enough that the crows left them be.

An unintentional parallel in my garden, currently.

Sun in the sun.

Jun21

I’ve missed time outside. Missed may be too gentle of a word. Craved? Yearned? Viscerally required..

With the more potent creatures of energy in this house discovering, pounding upon, and vocally barraging any boundary set before them… bedtime has fallen.

And with it, any hope at a regular visit to the garden in the evenings. Even with the garden a mere fifteen feet from the back door, it may seem miles these days.

Such that a large Black Prince splits one day and mildews in its splits the next.

I have my seeds for the next solstice now at least.

The okra is coming in slowly. Curious. Not enough at once for even a side dish. Perhaps the ten or so plants will gain momentum and I’ll rue this day soon enough.

A melon has appeared in the green beans. Did I plant that? This year? Or was it last?

The zinnias are, finally, holding true to promises of summer blooms. I hope the fun pops of pink and orange will continue as the heat climbs higher. The nasturtiums are hanging on, the troopers.

The corn lost the battle with gravity after the second flattening. The storm two weeks back took out the corn, half the tomatoes, and both windshields on my car (via tree.)

I should really remove it but have to move the beautifully composted compost out of the cooked pile first and… time in the garden is left wanting.

So happy solstice, y’all. From one still sunlit corner of the world, brightened ever more my a smaller sun mimic, to yours. May the ride down the backside of this year’s coaster be joyful, healthful, and grateful.

May5

Sometimes we’re caught off guard and knocked flat.

Sometimes a storm is just what you need.

Sometimes you aren’t prepared for unprecedented growth.

Sometimes you are.

And sometimes, no matter how hard you fight it, passions persist.

Foreground, background, blooms all around.

Mar4

June, the plum tree, has four varieties grafted to her dwarf trunk. This branch has yet to set fruit in the years we’ve had her.

I’d yet to prune her in the years we’ve had her.

This picture was Friday and then DH and I left the little loves at home (with his folks) and set off to a resort up the road a smidge. It was our fifteenth anniversary last week (what!?) and so we celebrated with a night of (awful) sleep, a fine dining (delicious) dinner, and an old favorite action movie playing on cable. It was splendid.

Today, the branch is ensconced in blossoms and I’m hopeful the fruit will set before the next storm unleashes downpour. And I’m hedging my bets we’re done with freezing (last average frost is a week or so away and the ten day forecast looked promising. I put out beans and corn today…)

Or perhaps this branch never fruits precisely because it blooms too soon in the spring and the rains take away any chance.