You may or may not remember when I warned about suckers coming off below the graft area on fruit trees. But: I said to watch for them and don't let them get out of hand... These are peach suckers, from the graft zone and they are clearly out of hand! I cut them as close … Continue reading Trouble In (Summer) Paradise
Ever heard of a Dutch Baby? Well, my goodness, I hope you have! These are sort of pancakes, but much poofier and you make them in the oven. I used to eat them every Sunday after church. I went with my parents when we all lived in Colorado. We used to get them at the … Continue reading Buttered Dutch Babies
After a few years of making yogurt I have fiddled around and changed my base recipe. I still make a Greek yogurt type product using ultra pasteurized half and half and I'm still using the same inulin, but I've changed the probiotics. The first year I made yogurt I made three different probiotic strains and … Continue reading Max Probiotic Yogurt
So. Yes. I am having a new experience in my garden. As my grandmothers were, I'm also: usually always home. I visit my family, but mostly around Christmas time when my garden is asleep. This year I'm finding out what happens when you aren't home to stop disasters! There were bees and hornets all over … Continue reading Crazy Happenings In The Garden
One of my family's favorite summer foods are often called either "quick" or "refrigerator" pickles. These make the crunchiest pickles because they aren't cooked. I grow Armenian cucumbers, which are actually melons. They taste like cucumbers and they don't get bitter in our high heat like actual cucumbers do. So, I always have fresh additions … Continue reading Quick/Refrigerator Pickles
Today is my twelve year anniversary for my blog: Crazy Green Thumbs. This has been so fun! Thank you to all of you who read, comment and shape this blog! I'm also having a great day for views. If you'd like to see my advice for blogging, click here: Writing A Successful Blog Meet you … Continue reading Yayyyy!
Crepe myrtles have been a symbol of the south for a very long time. Some people love them, some people hate them. I'm both. I really do not like the ones meant to mimic lilacs. But, crepe myrtles are a poor substitute for lilacs. Yes they flower with big fluffy blooms, but there's no scent … Continue reading Crepe Myrtles, Texas Style
Summer is officially bearing down on us down here in South Texas. Boy, is it hot! If you garden: you sure don't want to do it in the middle of the day when it's over 100°F! However, all the things down here that I choose to plant will usually sail through the heat as long … Continue reading Summer Sun And The Fruits Of My Labor
Pawpaws are a difficult plant to place. In their young life pawpaws are an understory tree in the eastern US. They need shade when young. As they grow: they break through that shady forest canopy, where they grow, and want full sun. This is a replacement pawpaw. Unfortunately, I had a failed attempt last year … Continue reading Putting Some Shade Cloth On The Pawpaws
Everyone focuses on the pretty, fruitful parts of a garden. But there is usually a system set up in the background making it possible. This timer has the main hoses out to the four raised hugelkulter vegetable beds. The hoses have painter's tape and labels for which bed they go to. The splitter above the … Continue reading Today’s Crazy Gardening
I run a mostly organic garden, because: I mostly grow food crops. The only thing I deviate on, is herbicide, and that only goes in select areas. (Like the gravel play area that I did not create.) Well I also use amdro bait. I cannot abide fire ants in my beds. So, as I'm gardening … Continue reading Local Lizards
Plant these things now! This is a summer tutorial, but you need to start these plants as soon as possible to harvest them this summer! The things I grow in summer are things that I don't have to baby. Today our "feel like" temperature was 103 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm not interested in doing manual labor … Continue reading Low Maintenance, Highly Productive, Summer Vegetables.
We've had rain the last week and cloudy skies so our temperatures have been cooler than usual. I don't know what is wrong with my bed of corn. The seed is from burpee's and I usually have better quality seed. It could be that. However, I have not rotated beds in the last three years … Continue reading Easing Into Summer
Shade cloth structure is in for the year. The plants under this are low chill cherries (a Minnie Royal and a Royal Lee) and a low chill dwarf peach (Bonanza). All are from Raintree Nursery. My dwarf peach. Roma tomatoes. Some cukes forming. Potatoes, doing potato-y things. The ginormous pomegranate bush next to my hugelkulter … Continue reading Summer Heat San Antonio
I am redoing my shade cloth cage. I have realized over the past two years that this is beneficial for the dwarf peach as well as the sweet cherries I have planted. My original shade structure (see how to build one here.) over my high intensity fruit bed. Learn how to build a traditional hugelkulter/high … Continue reading Whatcha’ Building?
Pomegranates forming! The pomegranates have done well so far. How open pomegranate fruits are. This is why they get fungal issues inside the fruit. Giant fig tree with thousands of fruits developing. Tomato and mysore raspberry bed. Potatoes. Bananas. The daylillies are blooming. I think this year I'll make fritters with the flowers. Another view … Continue reading The Great Pomegranate Bush
Future pomegranate. I love these, but: processing a whole bunch of these, no matter the method, is tedious. My poor sick pear. I'm not sure if the drought and heat last year got to it, or if the fireblight and iron chlorosis is doing it in. So sad to see my twelve year old tree … Continue reading Summer Fruits Are Forming
I'm in San Antonio. I grow Asian persimmons and have done so for about twelve years. The first tree was a dud (that's what the picture above is.) It was an astringent persimmon, a Saijo. It was fantastically sweet, but had the texture of a water balloon filled with snot. Varying degrees of ripeness from … Continue reading Non Astringent, Asian Persimmon In South Texas
Corn, onions, with the cucumbers near the remesh trellis. Tomato/mysore/aspargus/bean bed. Unfortunately, I did a little digging online on the mysore raspberries and even though they do well in our heat (regular raspberries do not.) they're supposed to be watery and not very flavorful. They are going crazy out here, though. So, they may be … Continue reading Garden Happenings
So, I had surgery last week and the beginning of this week. I'm not supposed to lift more than twenty pounds for several weeks. But it is the day before Mother's day and that means 100° heat is almost here. Today was in the 80's with showers, and I finally felt good enough to go … Continue reading Dumb, Dumb, Beds
Crazy Green Thumbs 