Kiowa and Quachita Blackberries May 28, 2013

Still lots of unripened berries on the vines.  I will make some jam and jelly next weekend.  I'm dreading the next step which is removing the canes.  Berries grow on one year old wood.  After they have produced berries the canes have to be removed.  That will be some stickery, painful work.  With the little bit of cleaning up I did this weekend I have scratches, bruises, and bug bites all over my legs.  Not very attractive.

Weekend at the Farm May 25 - 27, 2013

This is Satin Marina Althea.  I have  two of them.  One of them is growing in partial shade, and the other one is growing in full sun.  The one in partial shade is bigger and looks healthier looking.  It's hard to get established in the hot Texas sun.  The color of the flowers are blue with a red throat.  Really pretty.

• I put a big dent in spring clean up this weekend.  I pulled up spent flowers, cut away plants flopping over into the paths, weeded, and clipped.  I hauled 10, 20, maybe 30 wheel barrows of greenery to the compost pile.  And I've started laying cut up greenery down in my beds as mulch. It's good for the soil and rots quickly, and nothing grows underneath it.
• Pulled up blackberry vines that spring up in all the wrong places.
• The pine cone ginger is beginning to emerge.  It gets a late start!
• The elephant ear bulbs I planted in the Shade Garden have shot up several leaves, sort of a blue-green color.
• The zinnia seeds that fell to the ground last summer are starting to sprout.  The Nigella is going to seed, the daffodil greenery is almost completely brown (I can finally clean that mess up).  The Giant Dutchman's Pipe (pipevine) is really going growing well this year.  And I finally see the Coral Vine around the Orchard arbor springing to life. 
• I watered lots of plants with my bucket and my rain water.  And I fertilized here and there.  
• Watered with the hose many of my roses in the Rose Garden, and I fertilized them as well.  Next week I will do the other half of the Rose Garden.  They need a good drink of water every once in a while.
• Cleaned house on Sunday.
• Sat outside and watched lightening bugs Saturday night.
• The armadillos are nuisance.  There are plenty of spaces wide enough for them to get into the yard, but last year they never figured it out.  This year they are turning everything upside down.
• Picked lots of baby patty pan squashes and green beans from the garden.  Cooked them in chicken stock with spinach, fresh thyme, chives, oregano, lemon balm, and rosemary from the Herb Garden.  Tossed with pasta and Parmesan - delicious.
• Gathered squash blossoms from the garden, stuffed them with Parmesan, fresh herbs, and mozzarella.  Mom and I dipped them in batter and fried them.  Served them to my family with a little arugula tossed in lemon dressing on Monday for a little snack.  Never made them before.  They are around for such a short time every year that it makes them seem kind of special.
• My mom, sisters, and I made blackberry jelly on Monday (Memorial Day).  We all went down to the Orchard and picked the berries.  Fun day.  Still lots of unripe berries.  I will make more jelly or maybe jam next weekend.  Improvement for next time:  I didn't think we needed to bother with skimming off the foam.  That was a mistake.  It will be prettier without the foam clouding up the jelly. 
• I have two varieties of blackberries:  Kiowa and Quachita.  Kiowa has thorns, and it is really aggressive.  But it has huge berries.  Quachita is a thornless variety.  The berries are smaller, and they ripen later than Kiowa.

Butterfly Bush May 19, 2013

Each little floret is a piece of nectar heaven. 

Growing Pumpkins May 19, 2013

This is my third attempt to grow pumpkins.  This time I started in early spring.  The other two times I planted the seeds in the fall thinking I'd get some fall pumpkins.  That didn't work out, not sure why they didn't prosper.  They always start out looking exceedingly healthy - huge gorgeous leaves, lots of flowers... But I have quite a few baby pumpkins now, so maybe I'll be carving a pumpkin in October!

 

Bees Coming Home for the Night.

It is dusk, and they are all waiting in line to get into the hive for the night.

Parsley Going to Seed May 19, 2013

I have scads of curley leaf parsely going to seed in the Orchard.  I grow it for the butterflies that lay their eggs on the parlsey.  It pays off in the summertime.  August in particular is butterfly season.  The air will be alive with butterflies.  I grow many larval food plants that are attractive to butterlies.  I grow pipevine, parlsey, fennel, cannas, senna, passion vine, spice bush, citrus, milkweed, and sun flower just to name a few.

St. John's Wort May 19, 2013

My St. John's Wort is blooming.  It is a mounding, evergreen spring bloomer.  I have several shrubs of it growing in my Medicine Garden because, although my variety has only ornamental value, many varieties are used medicinally to cure depression.  The leaves and flowers can be dried and used to make teas and tinctures. 

Black Eyed Susans Everywhere May 19, 2013

These are in the Orchard.  Cheerful sun lovers.

A riot of color in the Orchard.  Pinwheels, Larkspur, Poppies, Blackeyed Susans.

What's not to love about that face?

These flowers line the trails around our place. This is one particularly beautiful stand of pretty wild flowers.

Potatoes! May 19, 2013

How cute are these?  And I will actually eat these instead of throw them into the compost pile.

Scenes From the Weekend May 19, 2013

Glorious wildflowers in The Orchard.

I will miss the daisies when they are gone.  They are still blooming their hearts out, some of them are falling over.  I'm cutting the back when they fall over.  I have so many, I don't need them to go to seed.

The wisteria arbor looks good.  It is completely covered now.  It's just a matter of trimming it around the edges now.

Larkspur, one of the few true blue flowers in nature.

The Shade Garden - Giant Ligularia, Chinese Bloodroot, Camellia, Snakeroot, Ginger, Coralberry.

The Orchard is ablaze with flowers.

The Shade Garden.

A Weekend at the Farm May 18 - 19, 2013

It was a hot and humid weekend.  Already!  I got in the pool for the first time this year.  It felt really good.

• Planted two bare root Mr. Lincoln roses that my mom gave me on Mothers Day.  I will have to really baby them if they are to survive being planted this late in the year.  I like a challenge fortunately.  I mulched them with pine straw that I collected in the woods.
• I dug up the last of the red potatoes. There are dozens of them!  At least it's a vegetable that I eat.  I am covered up in kale, but we haven't eaten a bite.
• I picked about a dozen patty pan squash.  Another vegetable I don't eat.  If they are picked when they are about half the size of an egg they can be steamed.  That's how they are served in fancy restaurants - baby vegetables are popular.  But squash grows so quickly, it's hard to get to them before they have grown past that size.  Going to the farm only on weekends makes it difficult to harvest vegetables at their peak.  Asparagus is the hardest!  It's little head is just sticking out of the ground one weekend, the next weekend it is three feet tall.
• Planted two eggplants in the Vegetable Garden.  Eggplant likes hot weather, so it isn't too late to plant.
• Planted 6 cleome in the Star Garden.  I tried to grow it from seed, but I think the weather was too cold or the water was not right, the seeds never sprouted.  Cleome is a good plant for re-seeding.  I had jillions of them at one time, but I covered everything with a thick layer of mulch, and they never came back.  Pretty flowers, common name is Spider Flower.
• Planted 4 purple trailing lantana in the Rose Garden and the Star Garden. I won't plant anything else this summer, it's getting too hot for it to survive with out me being there every day to help it along.
• Cut away some of the senna tree around the pool.  Trimmed the Indian Hawthorn around the pool.
• Replaced the soaker hoses around the pool. The old ones had some big holes in them, and they weren't watering everything evenly. 
• Cleaned the vent above the stove.  Took everything apart and washed all of it.  Yuck.
• Cleaned the bathrooms.
• Sat on the porch for a long time on Saturday evening.  There was a really nice breeze.  Very pleasant.
• Deadheaded roses in the Rose Garden.  Although it is the hottest part of the day, the best time of day to go into the Rose Garden is around noon.  Right around noon all the roses seem to release their perfume.  The air smells so sweet.  And the striped lizards are at their busiest.  They run all over the place looking for insects.  They are interesting, creepy little fellows.  Cut away plants that were leaning into the paths.
• Cut away plants that were leaning into the paths in the Star Garden.
• Made a water and fertilizer schedule so I can keep track of what I'm watering and fertilizing.  Watered lots of plants with my watering can and my rain water that I have collected.  Even though it may only be a gallon of water on each shrub, it definitely helps keep them alive.
• The blackberries will be ripe next weekend.  I'm going to make jelly.

Oakleaf Hydrangea May 12, 2013

The oakleaf hydrangeas are in bloom.  They are deciduous shade lovers.  Such pretty flowers, and as they
fade they continue to be really pretty.  When I find these in small containers I buy them.  They grow quickly, and they are so expensive when they are in the huge containters!

 In the far right of this picture is a tiny plant I bought last year at Buchanan's Nursery.  There is only two years difference between the big plant and the small plant.  Fast growers.