Plant Erotica

I can't help it, my mind takes me there.  This plant looks very erotic thanks to the unusual flowers of the Hojo Santo Plant.

Weird Insects on My Hyacinth Bean Vine

Weekend at the Farm August 21 - 23, 2014

Friday morning shopping with Blake.  Looking for a dress for her baby shower.  We had lunch at PF Chang's, and then I headed to the grocery store on my way out of town.  Stopped at Arbor Gate and bought 2 Thryallis and a couple bags of organic fertilizer.

• The obedient plant has finished bloom so I waded in there in my trusty rubber boots and started pulling a bunch of it up.  It was taking over the middle bed of the original Star Garden.  I was happy to see my Marie van Houtte rose was still alive despite being over taken  by obedient plant.   I made a wide berth around the rose which I planted in the spring, so it is still very small and has to be given some extra attention.  Fertilized it and watered it - a little loving care for sticking it out all summer buried under obedient plant.. 
• Spent most of the morning in the Orchard.  There is a fungus spreading in some of the crushed granite paths.  It is very unsightly, and not affected at all by herbicide.  I have sprayed it many times, and it does not seem to be at all affected by it.   I raked the fungus into piles, dumped it into the wheel barrow and hauled it to the woods.  I also used my hedge trimmers to cut back blackberry vines that were growing into the paths.  I pulled weeds in the grape vine bed, and then I spread grass clippings on all the disturbed earth.  Sprayed herbicide in the paths and along the fence line that encircles the Orchard.  Weeded in all the beds.
• Cut back lantana around the pool that was getting pretty shrubby.  One of my least favorite chores.
• This weekend I am watering all the beds in the Greenhouse Garden.  It's so hot and dry, all the shrubs and trees are suffering.
• Pulled up raggedy, overgrown zinnia plants in the Star Garden and reseeded the areas with dried seed heads.
• Weeded, weeded, weeded, weeded - everywhere.
• Worked in the Star Garden for a long time on Sunday morning.  I cut away plants extending into the paths, pulled weeds, pulled up old zinnia plants.  I cleared out a bed that I have been looking at with dismay for a long time.  It was choked with the weed I hate most of all.  It has long (six inches long), thick roots, and it is a bitch to pull up.  You have to dig way down under the dirt to get to a knobby place.  If you don't grab onto that knobby place the plant will break away from the roots and become even stronger than it was.  This weed is truly my enemy.  Hauled 4 wheelbarrow full of debris to the burn pile.
• I tackled the African Hosta bed on Sunday.  The armadillos have completely uprooted all my African Hostas.  I have many, many hundreds of bulbs in that bed.  I encircled it with wire flower bed edging that is about two feet tall.  I know armadillos can climb over a two foot tall border, but I'm hoping that their blindness will make them move on when they can't easily get in.  I gathered up all the uprooted bulbs and filled two grocery sacks full of them - one for my sister and one for Janine.  I replanted zillions of them in the hosta bed, and I planted the rest in the new beds I built in the Greenhouse Gardens.  That project was a bitch.  Hot and unpleasant.  But I will be happy about it next spring when I see all my new hostas in the Greenhouse Garden. 
• Planted two Thryallis in the bed next to the new deck.  It needed to be spruced up now that we have a pretty deck to sit on!
• Napped and swam on Sunday.
• LWanna came up on Sunday to work on Bert's computer.
• It's so dry.  It hasn't rained in many weeks.  I struggle to keep everything watered .  It is the places on the outer edges of the gardens that are so dry.  Hauling water 2 gallons at a time is not easy!
• I've been  watching a huge woodpecker all weekend.  He likes to go into the Shade Garden.  He is over a foot tall.  Really interesting-looking.  
• Bumble bees were busy this weekend.  They were all over the zinnias.

Making Rose Petal Mead August 16, 2014

 Josh and I made mead on Saturday.  He has the mead/beer making knowledge, and I have the honey.  We're just doing it for fun.  Of course we hope it will be delicious, but it is mostly just for fun and the pleasure of doing something together - talk about two peoples' interests intersecting perfectly!

This is me pulling the petals off the roses.  I picked these early in the morning before Josh and Amy arrived because in this heat the roses become dessicated pretty quickly.

 The rose petals.  We also added a few sprigs of mint as well.  I find it both mystifying and humorous how much emphasis is placed on sterilizing all the equipment very very carefully.  Then after all that sterilization we dump a bunch of dirty plant material into the liquid. 

 We only made a half batch of mead because we wanted a trial run before we "went for it".  This is a half gallon of water and half gallon jug of honey, so this pot was adequate for the job.  In the photo above and below we have added the honey to the boiling water.  This is called "must".

 Above, the team watching the must cook.

 Above, the must is poured into the primary fermentation vessel, or as I like to call it, the bucket, which has a couple of chilled gallons of water inside already.

 Above, we have already added the yeast and vigorously  stirred it.  Then we put on the lid with that little thing (don't know the name of it) on top that rises and falls when the fermentation begins and gases begin to form.

 Above, Josh with the honey and the secondary fermentation vessel, or as I like to call it, the big bottle.  In about two weeks we will transfer the mead from the primary vessel into this vessel.  

Weekend at the Farm August 16 - 17, 2014

The Hyacinth Bean Vines I planted are just starting to bloom.  They are growing from seeds I harvested last year.
Arrived on Friday about 3:00.  Josh, Amy, and Blake came up on Saturday.  Josh and Amy spent the night.  Blake drove home after dinner.  Mr. H did not come because he went to visit his father.

• We made mead from some of the honey I collected in June.  Josh brought all the equipment.
• Swam for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon while waiting for the must to come to room temperature so we could add the yeast.  We are making a sweet, still rose mead - similar to a dessert wine.

Sunday:

•  I pulled up all the spent Verbena Bonariensis  and weeds in the side bed.  Covered all the disturbed earth with shredded leaf mulch which was important, because there were a lot of weeds in that bed that had gone completely to seed. That was the hardest thing I had planned for Sunday.  It was downhill-easy from there.
• Planted 3 Beef Master tomato plants in the Vegetable Garden.  Maybe I will get some fall tomatoes...  Never sure with all the hungry critters out here!
• Pulled lots of weed in the Vegetable Garden.  
• Loosened the soil in one of the beds in the Vegetable Garden and sowed some French Marigold seeds and  some Fiesta Blend Nasturtiums.  Marigolds deter nematodes and Nasturtiums are both pretty and edible.  
• Worked in the Orchard for quite a while.  I pulled weeds and cut back blackberry vines.  I loosened soil and sowed lots of sunflower seeds that I collected last year. I watered all my new fruit trees really well - the Mayhaw, the Crabapple, and the Mulberry.
• Watered some of my shrubs that were gasping.
• Spent some time training and pruning my Peggy Martin Rose.
• Sprayed herbicide in the back yard, the driveway, the Star Garden, the Orchard, and the Rose Garden.
• Installed new soaker hoses around the pool.
• Cleaned out three of the rain barrels and filled them with fresh water - they were pretty green.
• Weeded, weeded, weeded and hauled wheelbarrows of debris to the woods.
• The butterflies and hummingbirds are really active right now.  August is particularly great for butterfly-watching.
• Good weekend, love being with my kids.

Weekend at the Farm August 9-10, 2014

 

Note the bee in the picture above.  These great big bumble bees are INSANE for my blooming Obedient Plant.   They have been crawling all over it the entire day

Ashley and Allen came up with some friends and hung by the pool all day on Saturday. 

•  Friday afternoon I drove by the Nixon Lake house on the way in and saw that someone had come in and mowed the yard.  I could see red shrimp plant blooming.  I wanted some of that shrimp plant,  in fact, I've had my eye on it for a couple of years.  So I drove all the way to the house, changed out of my work clothes, changed into my garden clothes, and drove back to the house.  I tried hard to dig up some clumps, and I was moderately successful, but there were years of dead debris crowding it.  And I was nervous digging around in someone's yard.  I left with a half dozen clumps of bearded irises and two clumps of shrimp plant.  When I got home I immediately trimmed off the tops of the shrimp plant clumps and planted them in the Greenhouse Gardens.  I realized that I could probably root all the clippings I removed.  Shrimp plants are very knobby at the leaf  margins.  Knobby stems are good candidates for rooting in water. And sure enough, I put them in water and they are looking really sprite.  Hopefully this fall I will be able to plant them all over the place.  Shrimp plant likes shade.
• Planted the bearded irises I dug up from the Nixon Lake house in the front flowerbed.   
• I haven't been here for two weeks, and the place needed a LOT of work.  
• Spent a lot of Saturday morning in the Rose Garden pulling up spent Black Eyed Susans and tall weeds.  Made a huge pile of debris.  Cut away branches of Harlequin Glory Bower that were blocking the path.
• Also spent part of Saturday morning pulling weeds in the Orchard.  All the weeds that I pulled two weeks ago grew back wherever I did not put down grass clippings or leaf mulch.  So I pulled them up again and spread grass clippings over the loose soil.
• Saturday - Cut away as much as I could  that was blocking the paths in the Star Garden - Almond Verbena, Zinnias, Verbena Bonariensis, Hyacinth Bean Vine, on and on and on.
• Saturday I also spent time in the Vegetable Garden.  A lot of the lower branches of the Mexican Torch Flowers had sheared away from the main trunk.  There are about 6 plants that came up from last year's stray seeds. They are about 20 feet tall.  The lower branches get so heavy they just tear away.  But they don't die, so I cut them.  Trimmed the Marigolds and the arugula.  Trimmed the Birdhouse Gourd vine.  Pulled weeds.  
• Also Saturday morning, before the young folks arrived,  I shook out the rugs, vacuumed the whole house, cleaned the toilets and the kitchen sink.
•  Watered here and there.  It's pretty dry, there has been no rain here.  I was hoping, since we have had good rain in Houston, that it would look good here.  But alas, no.
• Sunday morning I worked in the Rose Garden again.  I haven't been in there working for almost a month, and it was a mess. I hand watered and almost all my roses.  I didn't get Soncy or Blush Noisette watered.  And I wanted to water the cannas in the Long Border, but it got too hot to be out there.  The voles have tunneled around the roots of all the roses, so I spent a lot of time mushing down the mud with my rubber boots.  I was trying to cover the roots with dirt.  I pulled tons of weeds.  I used the weed eater to cut away weeds in various places.  When I was finished with the weed eater I was covered in burs that flew up on my clothes.  I trimmed back some of the roses in preparation for the fall flush of flowers.  I couldn't get to all of them, too hot.  I also fertilized all the roses with an organic granular.  The water and the fertilizer are my hope for a pretty fall.
•  Sunday I sprayed herbicide in the Orchard, the Vegetable Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Star Garden. 
• I was pretty exhausted after that. My hands are covered with rose stickers under the skin, and I'm sun burned.  Good weekend.

The Farm

To us, our house was not insentient matter — it had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see us with; and approvals, and solicitudes, and deep sympathies; it was of us, and we were in the peace of its benediction. We never came home from an absence that its face did not light up and speak out its eloquent welcome — and we could not enter it unmoved.

Mark Twain

Shrimp Plant August 10, 2014

 I dug up some shrimp plant from the yard of the deserted house on Nixon Lake Road.  It is easy to see why it is named shrimp plant.  I planted two clumps of it in  the Greenhouse Gardens.  And I am trying to root about 30 branches in water.  If all of this roots I will be so happy!  Shrimp plant likes some shade.  And it is obviously extremely drought tolerant because it has been growing pretty well with absolutely no irrigation whatsoever for the three years that I have had my eye on it. 

Weekend at the Farm July 26 - 27, 2-14

This is a Striped Beauty Canna bud, a few of the petals are just starting to emerge.  Canna buds are the most impressive of any flower I grow in my garden.

It was a family weekend.  Mom, Dad, Nancy, Lisa, and Beckett spent the night on Saturday.  We swam and made a bat house.  Nancy, Lisa, Bert and I went into Brenham for Hot Nights Cool Tunes.

• Cleaned the guest bedroom and bathroom.
• Cleaned the leather furniture and table tops.
• Cleaned the vent hood and the air conditioner grates.  
• Cleaned the ceiling fans.
• Vacuumed the fire place / hearth area.
• Vacuumed the house.  Mopped the kitchen.
• Enjoyed our family and felt lucky to be part of something so good.