A Flower is Born

Today I was taking pictures and saw a most amazing sight.  I found a bud of white prickly poppy.  I took a picture of it with my 18-50 mm lens. Then I decided I wanted to compare this picture to one taken with my 100 mm macro.  I had to walk about 50 steps back to the car, change out lenses and come back.  But when I returned, the flower had changed and was partly open.  Then, while I took pictures, I  saw it give a little shake and a push and open further. Finally, after about 5 rounds of this within in about a minute, it was open. It's last motion was to shake off a little piece of  green covering that had been on the side  the bud when I started taking pictures.

 This is the bud.  Notice that it has already broken out of the green covering and only a little piece is left.

 The bud was already somewhat flat when I got back and went to thiis by the time I composed and focused the shot. 

The next movement got it this much open.

Another shiver and push got it to here.

The next to last motion that I saw got it to fully open but the piece of green, seen on the bud was still attached.

The last shiver made the little piece of green drop off.  I didn't see any more motion after that.

A New Year's Weekend of Gardening

I've been helping my best friend, Natalie,  of  League City, TX, clean out her garden and dig plants that will soon move to a new garden in Galveston. We cleaned up a large flower bed in the front yard and then put new timbers around it since the pine tree that was part of the edging was completely rotted.  This was a pine tree that fell down about a decade ago and has been hard at work ever since, forming the front edging of the bed.  We also did major cleanup in the back yard.

Front bed after cleanup

We  pruned shrubs and cut back last years growth on the perennials. So we had lots of material to chip up.  I used her mulcher and got three big contractor bags full to go to Galveston to compost there before being used in the new garden. 

Natalie had visited me this past Thanksgiving and taken home some pots to to use to move plants to the new garden. I begged her to take more pots, but she insisted that she had more than enough. But, in three days of digging, we ran out of pots and are using buckets, earthboxes and even bins to hold the plants she'll be moving.

 Some of the Galveston-bound plants

More Galveston-bound plants

  

 This Camellia lives in a pot and is ready to move

I am going home with at least ten pots of Natalie's plants including a Martha Gonzalez rose bush, turk's cap, snowbells, ugly shrimp plant (which in Houston blooms at least eleven months out of the year and is a major humming bird attractant) and cigar plant. This is my second load of plants f rom her garden.  I also spent a few days with another friend and bought him a silverbell tree and a Louisiana azelea for Christmas and bought myself a possum-haw tree. It will be interesting to figure out how all this will fit in my little Honda Fit.

Some of my new plants

  And I'll be starting  plants from my garden that will grow well in Galveston. Exchanging plants with my gardening friends is one of my favorite garden-related activities. I love starting new plants from seeds or cuttings to share with friends. This is one of the many ways gardening enriches my life.

Winter Wonderland, Texas Hill Country Style

Frostweed Ice

I had high hopes of getting some of the snow that fell in parts of Texas but only saw a few flurries. But we had our first freeze on Friday night and awoke Saturday to twenty-seven degrees. When the sun came up, I saw white at the base of the many frost weed plants and had to go out to play with them and take pictures of their beautiful frozen "cotton candy".

Frostweed "Cotton Candy"

Frostweed is also know as Indian tobacco, tickweed, and white crown beard. Its scientific name is Verbesina virginica and is in the aster family. Although it grows from Texas north and east to New York state, I never noticed it until I moved to the Hill Country. The first time I noticed it was when my daughter and I walked after the first freeze.

Since then I've found it is an important source of necter for fall migrating Monarch butterflies and is the larval host for Bordered Patch, Silvery Checkerspot, and Summer Azure. It is a good xeric plant and grows in sun to part shade. Here, in the Hill Country, it almost always is growing in the shade of escarpment live oaks. It is a good plant to mix in with other fall bloomers. And the seedheads add winter interest.  You can collect seeds now and either plant them now or wait until after the last frost.

The Seed Head

I think the blooms are pretty and the dry seed heads add interest although the leaves and stems are coarse. I'm leaving some in them in back of my viewing garden to attract butterflies.They will also look good mixed with grasses that take part shade.

The Waiting Garden

Some of the Waiting Plants

I stopped blogging this summer because I was in a holding pattern, waiting to move with my daughter's family to our their new house on one and a half acres.  When I moved to Dripping Springs two years ago, I expected to be planting a LOT of trees as the kids bought seven acres that had only three trees. So I started collecting trees and shrubs.

Then they found they couldn't get a loan for a house on that property and bought a mostly tree covered lot. I changed my focus and started researching and collecting plants for dry shade and grasses to hold the soil on the sunny slope in the front yard.

All summer, I fought to keep the pots watered enough and to keep vegetables growing in three 4' X 12' raised beds. Then the electric company told us they needed to replace the pole in my garden so I had to open the deer netting and clear out Months went by and the pole was never replaced। But my neighbor's goats broke out a few times to come and dine on the garden and take down more netting. Deer started helping themselves to everything. Beans, zucchini, Swiss chard and lots of little shrubs, trees, and perennials were severely cut back or even pulled completely up. Many plants died.

Twelve 20-30 gallon pots of tomatoes were so scraggly that I just pulled them up. Several of my pepper plants, growing in Earth boxes, died or were pruned back so severely by the deer that they are only beginning to grow again. The eggplants are also history. I didn't get the fall tomatoes planted in time and they are now very few and scraggly. I'll probably only grow a few through this winter. So I was majorly disgusted with even thinking about gardening. 

I started working on the new property soon after it was cleared. I moved soil, cedar mulch and hauleld compost from the old house to imprrove the soil and drainage. We have really deep soil here. When we dug the holes to set the corner posts, we had soil all the way down the three foot deep holes. But is heavy and really holds water so I’m raising all the beds. But I have lots more to make or finish before I can plant.

The T-posts and Fence Wire in the Mud

I got started building a fence before the rains came and got the plants moved. Now I've been in a waiting mode again because it has been too wet to finish the garden which is a resting place for six deer. And this past weekend, my fence building friend had the flue.

Storage Area for Soil, Compost\ and Worm Beds

This area needs a lot of work to build storage for soil ingredients, mulch, and pots. It is stacked here, waiting for a building project that may happen during the winter. 

Future Viewing Garden From Out My Bedroom Window

I hope to have this garden in in time to have columbines blooming. But part of it is on top of the septic tank and we have to wait for the soil to settle and then add soil to get it level again.  The area that will be a path to my garden is also waiting for lots  more loads of soil.

Future Rose Garden Waiting for More Soil

This will  be a focal point of my garden.  It will be a raised bed, lined with stone with maybe a little stacked stone wall for a mutabulis rose to lean against. It will have a few easy roses and penstemons and other plants that need to be saved from the deer. Other parts will hold other flowers, vegetables, seedling grasses, and seeds and cuttings of native shrubs and perennials I'll start from seed.

Wafer Ash: A Perfect Garden Tree

On one of my first walks in the Texas Hill Country near my new house, I found a curious but very pretty set of little trees with seeds in what looked like tiny transparent doll plates. I took samples home and found it was the Wafer Ash or Hop tree, Ptelea trifoliata. I immediately put it on my list of trees to acquire and took some of the seeds in their interesting little saucers to plant. Currently they are still in my refrigerator since I missed them when I took out the other seeds I was stratifying. Today I did a morning walk with my camera and captured it on film and remembered how much I liked it.

A row of Wafer Ashes

The wafer ash is a host plant for Giant Swallowtail and the Two-tailed Tiger Swallowtail, two species that occur in the Texas Hill Country, which made me want it even more.

It is a very undemanding tree and will grow in most kinds of soils and in most kinds of light from full sun to full shade. But I think it likes to grow in light shade the best as that is where I found it, growing under oak trees along a roadside. It only grows to be 5 -20 feet high and about 10 feet wide. It is also a huge range,from Quebec, down the east coast through the South to the Midwest and west to California. That includes zones 4-8. Sometimes it is a little shrub and other times a small tree.

The only drawback I can find about it is that the leaves are kind of stinky. But apparently you have to crush them to get the odor. And the small white flowers are supposed to have a rich citrus smell. This tree is in the citrus family, and has the family smell. The leaves are in sets of three - bet you already guessed that from the name – and are very beautiful in themselves.

Wafer Ash Fruit (samaras)

This tree has historical medical benefits and was used in place of hops by early settlers even though it has poisonous substances in it. I even found it listed as a food tree but would not recommend it.

Hopefully I’ll get some babies started to plant on our new property next year. There are many places where this tree will do well and support butterflies.

They are easy to grow from seeds. You can collect them in the early fall and plant them outside and let them overwinter. They should sprout the following spring. They will also grow from softwood cuttings taken now through October.

Texas Hill Country Tomato Review

I’m harvesting all my tomatoes now and am ready to report my results with growing them.

All but two of my tomatoes are growing in 15-20 gallon pots. The other two are growing in an Earthbox. All of them are growing in a mix of about half and half potting mix and composted horse manure. This was a little too rich. This summer, I’ll probably use one-fourth vermicompost with the soil less mix. I just gave them their first additional fertilizer – a foliar spray of John’s Recipe Fertilizer, from Natural Gardener. My tomatoes are shaded after 4:00 P.M.

This is three days worth of harvest minus the ones I ate every time I walked by the basket.

Parks Whopper – so far a pretty early tomato and taste is OK. But the tomatoes are WAY smaller then they are supposed to be and the bush is shutting down. Taste is not exciting.

Roma VF – one of the best producers I have other than the Sweet 100’s. I’m growing them for cooking and for making Bruschetta. There are still lots of blooms on it as well as lots of tomatoes.

Sweet 100 Cherry– one of the most dependable and tasty tomatoes I know. This year I got my first three on April 30 and now get 25 or more a day from 2 bushes. They are covered in blooms and little green tomatoes so they will probably bear all summer. I only get about a third of them into the house. The others leap into my mouth each time I visit the garden.

Cherokee Purple – I have two bushes and they have started to bear a few weeks ago. I have a couple in the house now and have eaten several. They are another really delicious tomato. Last year, they bore all the way to frost with late afternoon shade.

Missouri Traveler – this is a tomato I remember growing decades ago. It is making the biggest tomatoes of all and looks like it is going to be a heavy bearer. It is tomato red. It is touted to bear in the heat.

Lime Green Salad – This is the first time I’ve grown this tomato but it is definitely going to be on my short list. It made a very stocky, healthy plant and was an early bearer. The tomatoes are yellow when they ripen but are green inside, making for a beautiful and tasty addition to salads. I’m afraid it is not very good in the heat but plan to make some cuttings to plant next month for my fall tomatoes.

Napal a Fiaschetto – This tomato is growing and bearing but not at the level of Roma VF. I think the fruits are smaller than they are supposed to be – I got carried away with my horse compost and added too much – but they are starting to get bigger. It is touted as being able to hold up to heat better than Roma can. I’m waiting to see if that is true.

Green Zebra – I had two of these last year and liked them for the interesting color. They lasted from spring to late October. The taste is okay but not fantastic. But this tomato looks like it is in decline and I’ve only gotten 6 fruits from it.

Improved Big Boy – This has the largest bush but so far, every fruit has had blossom end rot. Once the water got low in the earth box I’m growing it in, so that could be a factor, but not to this extent. I’ve thrown away maybe twenty tomatoes. Celebrity did that to me last year so I refused to grow it this year. I do think we need to find tomatoes that bear as quickly as possible so they don't run out of cool weather before we get a little crop and this may take a little too long. I also think I should have grown it by itself instead of with Razzelberry.

Razzelberry - I don't remember why I wanted this tomato. I am growing it in the earthbox with Big Boy and it is not successfully competing. I'll research it again and perhaps try again next spring to give it one more chance.

Oregon Spring – This is a determinate tomato and I hoped it would also be early. But I’m just starting to eat tomatoes from it. Probably won’t grow it again as I expect it will be finished in another month. I’ll have to do a test to be sure but I think I like both Missouri Traveler and Cherokee Purple better.

Texas Naturalized Tomato – I got this as a freebie from the Lady Bird Johnson Center. It is a grape-sized tomato and has just started bearing. It is fabulously sweet and I expect it will bear until frost. And it's just the right size to toss into a salad.

These are my favorite tomatos. From top left- Cherokee Purple, Arkansas Traveler, Lime Green Salad, and Sweet 100 Cherry.

Garden Recycling with Red Worms

When I moved to the Texas hill country, I wanted worms to help me make compost faster. I was composting horse manure which doesn’t compost as fast as some of the other manures and I needed lots of compost to amend the soil in the garden. By the time I got around to ordering the worms, I found I could only get them shipped in the winter and early spring.

So this past February, I ordered a pound of worms. I re purposed one of the large storage bins we had packed our household stuff in to move it here. Worms need air and they make a liquid as a byproduct of their digesting garbage. This liquid needs to be drain off so the worms don’t get too wet and drown. So I drilled lots of one-fourth inch holes in the sides and bottom of the bin and set it on some left over 2 X 4’s to keep it off the ground and allow good drainage and air exchange.

Then I shredded paper – mostly junk mail, ads on flat paper, phone books,

and newspapers, and mixed it with my horse compost that had composted twice. That is, it composted a few weeks, then I turned it into another bin for another few weeks before mixing it half and half with the paper. I moistened it all and added the worms. I waited a few days to start adding the garbage and, at first, only used part of the garbage for the worms.

In two months, I was able to harvest worms and put the old vermicompost into a new bin. It still had a few worms and lots of worm eggs in it but I just put a lid on it and left it in the same shady place where my worm bin resides. I made a new batch of matrix with the shredded paper and composted horse manure and put the harvested worms back. Now, almost another two months later, this batch is almost ready for harvesting.

To harvest the worms, I just dumped the contents of the bin on to an a piece of plastic. Then I scrapped off the top layers, allowing the worms to borrow deeper and deeper until they reached the bottom. Finally I was able to have a pile of almost pure worms, which I gathered up and dumped into their new bedding. Now, almost another I can add the garbage from a household of four and they are able to keep up with their golden habit of turning it into really rich compost.

There are easier ways to harvest. You can just take half the bedding, along with the worms that are in it and put it to finish ripening in another bin. The worms will die and add to the to the compost. You can even buy a system that has a stack of worm bins. You just add new bins as needed and the worms can move up from lower to higher bins. You harvest the vermicompost from the bottom-most bin.

Worms are endlessly fascinating to children and my grandson loves to visit them. And soon, I hope, we’ll take a few fishing and catch some sunfish. Meanwhile they work endlessly to get rid of my garbage and help my garden grow.