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?
Peach flower. Divisions for different types of fruits. I only have five types of plants, that I have more than one of. I have more than one of these because it was necessary for pollination. I'm growing on a quarter acre of land, which means there's a lot of different single varieties out there. I … Continue reading How To Successfully Run A Food Forest
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
I finally crossed over 4,000 followers! Thank you so much for choosing to spend time with me in the garden! I hit kind of a plateau that lasted from last year (when I started posting daily) until just recently. My subscriber stats slowed down to a crawl over the last year, even though last year … Continue reading Yippee!
I got a call the other day from a neighbor. "I have seven bricks, do you want them?" "Yes! Yes, I do!" I have plans for bricks, and free ones are the best kind! These plans were sparked by regularly spending hours on Pinterest (Can't sleep? It's Pinterest time!) and randomly remembering a few pins … Continue reading Painting Pavers To Look Like Books
Because of our heat, and the fact that our main hummingbird variety will not share with other birds: I use really small feeders and place them all over my yard. On the way out the door with fresh hummingbird food. I usually have five out at a time. In our feel like 112° heat, they … Continue reading My Favorite Hummingbird Feeders
I have a pomegranate thicket. I figured out this year that this plant was grafted when I put it in ten or eleven years ago. The majority of this monstrosity is rootstock. I almost never get fruit off of the back of this plant's mess. I'm usually very busy all year long because I have … Continue reading Pomegranate: Texas Style
Instructions on use. We're coming up on the last few weeks to get beneficial nematodes in before the summer heat. I buy nematodes every year. Sometimes I add them in fall, sometimes in spring. But no matter which season you choose, heat is your enemy. Full list of target insects and the variety of nematodes … Continue reading Don’t Wait To Get Rid Of Soil Borne Insects.
If you are my age (in my 50's), you might remember the music at the bottom of this post. It's music we don't hear anymore. But in the past: I always heard it at grandma's. I remember eating cereal in the morning at grandma's house. The radio would be on, first came the farm report: … Continue reading In The Garden
Soil has been added to my vegetable beds. The bananas have been fertilized. Bird baths have been scrubbed. I added water crystals to the beds this year because the bags of composted manure have a ton of sand in them and water runs right out of the beds, without something to absorb it. Pvc marking … Continue reading Finishing The Vegetable Beds
Crazy Green Thumbs 