Okra August 26, 2012

 If you wonder what vegetable you can plant in the dead of a Texas summer, this is the one!  Okra loves it hot.  Although other vegetable seeds may sprout and grow, most vegetables won't set fruit in hot weather.  That's why spring and fall gardens are planted here in Texas.     It's time to plant fall vegetable gardens.  Now is the time to plant to get a crop of green beans - there are about 90 days left until the first frost.  Anything that can grow and fruit within 90 days can be planted now.  It's a little too early to start winter vegetables in my opinion even though the stores are selling them.  I wait until October to plant broccoli, cauliflower, kale, etc. 

I planted this okra in the Orchard because I'm letting the Vegetable Garden rest.  Okra has beautiful flowers - it is in the hibiscus family, and the flowers look like hibiscus flowers - very ornamental.  It gets very tall, but it will produce okra pods before it reaches it's final height. 

Turk's Cap August 26, 2012

 Turk's Cap is a great shade plant because it has very showy flowers.  It's hard to find shade plants that flower, especially in the summer time.  There are many varieties of Turk's cap including a Ginat Turk's Cap with really large red flowers.  There are several pink varieties - I have Pam Puryear Pink Turk's Cap (which I don't think blooms as well as the red variety) and there is a white variety as well.  The white one would be worth having since white shows up so well in the shade.  Woodlanders sells the white variety.
The Turks's Cap is on the left side of the above photograph. 

 So you can really see how well the red flowers show up in the shade of the pictures above and below.  This plant really spreads via seed and runners.  There are lots and lots of little plantlets that can be moved to other parts of the garden.

 The frilly little green things in the picture below are flowers that are going to seed.  They will produce a little fruit that tastes just like an apple.  The fruits are edible, and they eventually dry out and the seeds drop to the ground.
Today there were dozens of Cloudless Sulphur butterflies hovering over the Turk's Cap.  This seems to be a favorite of theirs.

Spider Lilies August 26, 2012

Spider Lilies are also called Hurricane Lilies because they appear at the start of hurricane season.  Spider lilies like benign neglect.  The soil shouldn't be too rich, and the water shouldn't be too plentiful.  After the flowers finish blooming the greenery appears.  The greenery, which is slender and not tall, stays around until very early spring/late winter, and then it disappears.  For every bloom that springs up, there are a half dozen bulbs under the ground that didn't bloom.  They can be dug up and planted in other places.  But be patient.  After a bulb is dug up and moved, it won't bloom for several years.  Spider lilies sulk a bit after being moved. 
I remember being at my grandma's house many years ago, maybe thirty years ago.  It was in the fall.  On the side of her house there were hundreds of spider lilies springing up in the lawn.  I never forgot it, it was quite a sight  I've wished many times that I had dug up some of her bulbs and planted them in my garden.  But I wasn't much of a gardener back then, I was so young.

A Day at the Farm August 17, 2012

We drove up Thursday night and came home on Friday afternoon.  The family is coming to my house for my dad's birthday on Saturday evening.

• We bought these two water containers off of Craig's List for $75 each.  We are going to use them to collect rain water.  They each hold 250 gallons.  They are taller than I am.  Actually, I think we are going to give one of them away.  In order to collect water efficiently, there has to be a gutter coming off the roof leading into the opening in the top of the container.  Well, they are pretty unsightly, and I don't want it sitting next to the house.  So we'll put a gutter on the shed, and the cistern can sit next to the shed out of the line of sight.  I don't want one next to the house.  So we will only have need for one of them.  We can't put a gutter on the Greenhouse because the container is taller than the Greenhouse - the gutter system won't work.  These things are really big!
• I worked in the Orchard Friday morning.  I pulled up all the salvias.  They were overgrown, and they were no longer blooming.  I pulled up lots weeds.  I sprayed herbicide.  I hauled off 4 wheelbarrows of debris.  I deadheaded zinnias.
• I planted green beans in a bed in the Orchard that I prepared last weekend.
• The okra is doing really well.  Looks very pretty, about one foot tall.
• I watched the butterflies throughout the day.  They fill me with a sense of well being.
• Sprayed herbicide in the Vegetable Garden and the Star Garden.
• Good day.   

More Butterflies

This is a Buckeye.  They are August visitors to my farm.  This is the first one I have seen this year.  Very pretty.  They spend a lot of time on the ground with their wings open.  I think they are getting minerals from the soil.

This is a male Black Swallowtail.  They female is black and blue.  She has no yellow on her wings. 

Zebra Longwing in Burton

I have been seeing Zebra Longwings in Burton.  They are rare visitors, so I'm really happy to see them.  The stripes are not white, they are a yellowish-green color.  They are smaller than the black swallowtails and Giant Swallowtails.  They are about the size of Gulf Fritillaries.

 They seem to spend more time in the shady parts of the yard than the other butterflies do.  An interesting factoid:  The males are very aggressive in their mating habits.  It is not uncommon for them to stake out a chrysalis of a female pupae (they can somehow distinguish between males and females inside the chrysalis), and just as the butterfly is about to emerge the male will break the surface of the chrysalis and mate with the female.  Before the female's wings are even dry!

My Fall Plans for the Garden

Once fall arrives (September here in southeast Texas) I have a lot of plans.  Not only is fall prime planting weather since we have two growing seasons in Texas, it will also cool off a bit and become a more tolerable situation in which to work. 

I will transplant a lot of the Turk's Cap seedlings that sprouted this spring along the Boardwalk.  They are pretty good size now, and I want to move a bunch of them to the Shade Garden.  The bright red flowers will look really good in the Shade Garden.  I will do this in late fall when the weather is cooler.

I'm going to dig up the Blueberries in the Orchard and put them in pots.  The soil is simply too alkaline for Blueberries to prosper here.  Hopefully if I have them in pots I can control the water they receive (rain water) and I can put them on a fertilization schedule that will make them thrive.  There are only two Blueberries left of the 6 I had planted.  Lack of water currently and the drought last year has left them either dead or depleted.  I'll plant something else their spot, either Mayhaws or plums.  I haven't decided.  I have also considered putting in an arbor in that bed (because it's very big) and growing hops, at least for a season or two. 

I'm going to dig up all the perennial sunflowers that are growing in the Wave Garden and move them someplace where they can be supported by a fence.  I like them, but they are awkward looking, and they are not in the right spot.

I'm going to complete my bottle tree allee.  My husband just finished putting 4 cedar poles into cement forming an allee that connects the yard to the Rose Garden.  I'm going to get green bottles for the poles.  It should look kind of neat.  I like to have some structures in the yard, some sort of hard scaping for visual interest.  Bottle trees are very southern. 

I'm going to finally landscape the Circle within the driveway by creating some beds and paths.  My husband wants to fill the whole thing with white rocks like the driveway, in other words, everything that is not a flowerbed will be covered over with white rock.  I can agree to that, it might look pretty good.  We'll also put in some sort of sculpture, my husband will build something. 

I'm going to build several more beds in the yard.  One bed will be situated in such a way that the allee will be obscured by a chain link gate we found.  I will use the gate as a structure on which a Lady Banks rose can climb.  I'm also going to build a bed around a tall metal conveyor belt we found.  My husband stood it up like an art piece.  I'm going to train a pillar rose on it.

I plan to dig up my Sombrueil rose that is down by the Orchard.  It has never thrived where it is planted.  I'm going to move it and train it on the arbor next to the house.  I currently have morning glories growing on the arbor.  The rose will be more permanent.  This will be a winter event, after the hot weather is totally gone.

Also when winter is firmly in place I'm going to move the Fringe Tree.  It has never thrived in its current spot.  Too much shade.

I also want to work on the paths in the yard.  In various places I'm going to lay down some brick or rock or pavers, not for long distances, just three or four steps, probably at turns and intersections.  This will be just for something interesting to look at. 

Pine Cone Ginger August 12, 2012

 Pine Cone Ginger is a very unique ginger.  These gingers have healthy greenery with a different growth pattern from the butterfly gingers I grow.  You can see in the above picture to the far left is greenery from a butterfly ginger.   The leaf pattern is different from the pine cone gingers which dominate the rest of the picture.  Pine Cone Ginger gets its name from the unusual flowers it produces.  The flowers look like pine cones. They grow on stalks that come straight up out of the ground, they don't bloom on the top of the stalk like butterfly ginger.  The cone stalks are shorter than the leaf stalks, so you have to search for them to see them.    The cones have little yellow florets that sprout from the cone, see the picture below.   Eventually the cones turn red, which makes them very popular with the florist trade.  They contribute a very unusual and modern look to floral arrangements.

But what makes Pine Cone Gingers so unique is their history as an herb.  The cones are filled with a soapy liquid.  If you squeeze them, the juice gushes out.  It has a very intense "soapy" smell too.  The juice of the cones used to be (and still is by fans of natural products) used as a shampoo.  Very interesting.

 These gingers like deep shade.  Some gingers don't mind a little morning sun, but pine cone gingers don't tolerate it well.  I dug up these gingers from my home in Houston this spring, and they are thriving already. 

 After the little yellow florets are finished blooming the entire cone turns red.  Striking.

A Weekend at the Farm August 10-12, 2012

 I was able to snap 4 butterflies in the Butterfly Garden landing at once on a single plant of Wild Onion:  two Gulf Fritillaries, a Queen, and a Pipevine Swallowtail.

In the above picture are a Giant Swallowtail, a Gulf Fritillary, and a Swallowtail.

I watched butterflies for hours this weekend.  I ate breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday sitting in a rocking chair facing the Star Garden and watching the beautiful creatures.  It's interesting how butterflies have somehow created a mystique for themselves that no other insect has done.  For example, if it was grasshoppers that had overtaken my garden (ignoring the fact that grasshoppers eat my plants) I would be really grossed out!  Grasshoppers are pretty icky.  A butterfly is, after all, a bug, but they are dearly loved by everyone.

My husband and I cut up and moved three trees that fell during the rain on Friday evening.  We got about an inch of rain - yes! - and I suppose the weight of the water on all the dead unstable trees causes them to fall, always in a path, never into the woods it seems.  One of the trees was completely covered in vines with vicious stickers.  It was an ordeal to cut away the vines so that we could get to the tree with the chain saw.  Hot work. 

I turned the soil and added compost to a bed in the Orchard so I could plant some green beans - a fall crop of green beans.  My plan was to sow the seeds on Sunday morning after the sprinklers had settled the soil.  The sprinklers in the Orchard never came on.  I fooled with them for about an hour, jiggling the wires, etc. but I couldn't get them to work.  Maddening.  I'll have to call the young man that installed them.  That is the second time that zone has stopped working, and another zone had to be repaired by him as well.  I am not pleased.  I didn't plant the green beans, they won't sprout without water or rain.

I planted 4 Australian Violet plants in one of the new beds in the Star Garden.  These Violets are perennials. And the flowers are edible.  They have very attractive, round dark green leaves.  They spread very quickly.

I watered a few places in the Orchard since the sprinkler is not working:  the Mayhaw, the Mexican Plum, and the okra.  The okra is at risk of dying if the sprinkler is not repaired quickly.  My husband says that's ok if the okra dies.  Smile. 

I moved some more Columbine into shady beds and around the potato vine that grows on an arbor over the Greenhouse door.

We are in the dog days of summer.  It is difficult to do much of anything after twelve except putter.  Even the pool is unpleasant.


  

Perennial Ageratum 'Wayside' August 12, 2012

 While reading about plants that grow well in the south and that are traditional "passalong" plants, I discovered perennial ageratum.  It looks much the same as the recognizable annual we often see growing in gardens or being sold in nurseries.  But it will return reliably every year, and it spreads quickly.

Good things about this plant:  it is perennial, it spreads, it blooms in late summer and fall.  It is good to have plants in the garden that bloom in late summer.  And it is blue.  Blue is not a common color for late summer. Blue Mist Flower, Morning Glories and Asters are the only examples I can come up with just off the top of my head.

If you want more of it in other places, just dig some up and carry it with a little of the dirt to the place you want it.  I was a little disappointed when it started to bloom.  The pictures in the book made the flowers look more purple than blue.  There is actually little to no difference between the flowers of this plant (Eupatorium coelestinum) and those of Blue Mist Flower (Eupatorium greggii) that I already have growing in a different garden.  The leaves of the plants are completely different, but it is easy to see why they are so similar since they are in the same family.

Film of Butterflies in the Orchard

This film is of the butterflies flying into and out of a stand of yellow zinnias:  Black Swallowtails, Giant Swallowtails, Cloudless Sulphurs, Gulf Frittilaries, Pipevine Swallowtails, and a Variegated Fritillary.


http://youtu.be/9jr58-Wbizg

Butterflies and Butterfly Magnets

 It's so hard to capture a butterfly on film with the camera I have.  But the picture above is pretty good!

 The picture above is purple cone flower.  I have never had good luck growing them, mainly because coneflowers have tap roots.  Tap roots are very delicious to voles.  They are like underground popsicles to a vole.

I think coneflower buds are beautiful.

A Weekend at the Farm August 3-5, 2012

 This is a Limelight Hydrangea flower.  They are really beautiful.  I purchased a plant this spring.  The shrub is not very big yet, and there are only three flowers blooming on it.  But they certainly pack a punch.

• My husband and I harvested honey from our hive on Saturday.  That is not an easy job.  We have discussed trying to get an Ag Exemption with bees.  You need twelve hives to get the exemption.  But I just can't imagine maintaining twelve hives.  Harvesting honey is a process.  First I had to sterilize the jars.  (Somehow I turned a jar full of boiling water across the delicate underside of my wrist.  It hurt, needless to say.  Interestingly, the skin didn't blister.  I rubbed aloe vera across the wound, but it smarted pretty good all day nevertheless.)  After the jars were sterilized,  I had to get the smoker going which is not very easy.  Then I fetched the wheel barrow and covered it with plastic.  I use the wheel barrow to carry the supers up the hill.  They are vey heavy when they are filled with honey.  Next I put on a layer of clothes ( long sleeved shirt and long pants) as well as the bee suit.  There are two boxes from which I remove honey.  The two bottom boxes are for the bees.  The two top boxes are for me.  The top box had almost no comb built on the supers, so I pulled it off and set it on the ground.  By now the bees are furious and working as hard as they can to kill me, but I am nonplussed.  I removed 7 supers from the hive, and then I replaced the box that was on the ground.  I put on the lid and began the walk up the hill with the wheelbarrow full of supers.  The bees are real mad.  But, they are pretty cooperative relatively speaking, and they eventually fly away.  I hand the supers two at a time to my husband who is in the house.  The I go inside and strip off the bee suit and clothing - wet with sweat.  I purchased an electric knife to cut away the bees wax.  Bees wax covers each honey-filled hole in the supers.  I heard about these electric knives from my neighbor.  It was a great idea, and it really sped up the process.  You just run the knife along the wax and it peels away.  It also drips off the knife with having to scrape it off the knife - handy.  But it is nevertheless a time consuming process removing the wax.  My hand was aching from the strange position it was in.  After the wax is removed, the supers are placed in the honey extraction canister and spun.  Then we filtered the honey and poured it into jars.  We filled twelve jars and after we ran out of jars, we poured it into a gallon water jug.  I have no idea what we are going to do with all this honey - give it to family I guess.  When I returned the supers to the hive (having put on the bee suit again) I had an accident.  I pulled the top box off the hive to replace the supers, but the box underneath stuck to the top box.  It fell to the ground and absolutely exploded with bees.  It was like a billion bees came swarming out of the box.  Very intense. 
• I worked in the Rose Garden for a long time.  We haven't had any rain for such a long time that I decided I needed to give the roses a good watering with the hose.  That took about three hours.  While I watered, I weeded the rose flower beds and raked the paths.  I also sprayed herbicide in the paths.  It looked really good when I was finished.  It was really hard, hot work!
• Deadheaded flowers all weekend.
• I did something really stupid and transplanted a butterfly bush from the Long Border (that was growing in an awkward spot) to the Star Garden.  Never move a plant in August!  I was impatient.  I took a perfectly health plant and killed it.  When I left on Sunday it was a drooping, dessicated sad little half-dead plant.  And all I had to do was wait one more month!
• I weeded in the Orchard.  One of the beds was particularly weedy.
• I watered some plants that were struggling - the Mexican plum, the Mayhaw, the Madame Isaac Pereire.  I watered all my new shrubs just to be sure they would be all right.  Summers are brutal.
• I turned the compost pile.
• I moved some Columbine seedlings from the path where they had sprouted to a shaded flower bed. 
• Swam in the pool, but the water was hot and not refreshing.
• I watched the butterflies throughout the day.  They are so beautiful.
• When I got home to my house in Houston, I took some cuttings from  my single white Althea, my double purple Althea, my Penelope rose, and my Sweetheart rose.  I'm hoping they will root.  And I will eventually plant them in Burton.