Weekend at the Farm March 29 - 30, 2014

What a perfect weekend.  Sunny and cool.  I tried to get the kids up here for a visit - the weather was so beautiful - but they all had plans.

• The Little Blue Stem grass that I seeded in the clearing in front of the house has sprouted.  What I love about seeds is that I'm always amazed and surprised when they sprout - even though they always do.  Those feelings happen every time I come upon some ground that I have seeded, and I see the little green darlings dusting the ground.  That is a pretty pleasant experience to have so often.  Lucky me - to be so easily pleased at something so simple.
• Saturday morning I vacuumed the whole house and shook out all the rugs.
• Went to the feed store in Carmine after that.  Bought cottonseed meal to fertilize the fruit trees and Contender Bush Bean seeds, red seed potatoes, and White Scallop squash seeds.  I will plant all that this weekend in the Vegetable Garden.
• Saturday spread 4 loads of crushed granite in the Star Garden.  I wasn't going to do the two center, circular walkways because I covered them in crushed granite two years ago, but my husband convinced me to do them.
• Saturday afternoon I turned over 4 beds in the Vegetable Garden, added cotton seed meal to the soil, and seeded two of the beds with seed potatoes and two of the beds with squash.  I'm growing the squash for the blossoms.  Squash blossoms are a delicacy.
• Sprayed herbicide in the Vegetable Garden, it was pretty weedy in the paths.
• Saturday evening I walked round and round looking at everything, glass of wine in hand.
• Went in to Carmine and ate at JW's Saturday night. 
• Some time in the middle of the night on Sunday I woke with fever.  Didn't feel well all day, achy and feverish.  I blame Brenda C who was coughing up a lung during a meeting on Thursday.  And I will call her up on Monday and let her know! 
• Went into town on Sunday morning with my husband to get the Cub Cadet tire repaired.  Couldn't get it done, though, and burned the entire morning trying.
• Also went to Home Depot to get a few things.  I bought some succulents to plant in a pot in the Infinity Garden.  I just love them!  Every shape imaginable, they are fascinating little plants:  Crosby Jade Plant, Donkey Tail Burrito, Belle Blue Pachyveria, Cobwed Cebenese, Aloe Vera, ET's Fingers, and Hens and Chicks.  I also bought 3 two gallons Lorapetalums to put in an empty spot around the pool.  The pool area looks the worst of all the places on the farm.  I am not a landscaper!  Cottage gardening is what I can do because it is totally unorganized.
• Planted the succulents.
• Planted the Lorapetalums.
• Turned over another bed in the Vegetable Garden, mixed in some cotton seed meal, and seeded it with Contender green beans.  Also tucked in some squash seeds and green bean seeds in a few other places.  Inter planted with French Marigolds.  The marigolds I seeded last weekend have already sprouted.
• Sprayed herbicide Sunday afternoon round the pool, in the Orchard, the driveway in front of the house, and the Rose Garden.
• Broke up some clay pots that were crumbling and threw all the shards at the entrance to the Rose Garden.  It looks pretty good, decorative. 
• Loosened the soil and seeded a couple more places in the Star Garden and in the Orchard with Goldsturm seeds, Maxima seeds, Scarlet Flax, Baby's Breath, and Laura Bush Petunia seeds.
• Sunday evening I walked round and round, wine glass in hand, looking at everything and watering here and there with my watering can.

Evolution a Flower Bed

When I build a bed I don't always fill it up right away with plants.  I want to decide what will work.  I use mostly plants that I already have, I just dig some up from other beds where they have spread and transfer them to the new bed.  But I always add something I have never grown.  This bed is just coming out of dormancy after the winter, so it looks a little bare right now.  In the front are Excelsior Spanish Bluebells.  Just behind that are purple Columbine plants that I transferred from paths where they randomly seed.  On the right are old fashioned purple bearded irises that I rescued from an old house.  In the middle (you can't see it because it has not leafed out, and it is small) is a double pink Althea that my neighbor rooted and gave to me.  They get very big, like a small tree or large shrub.  That is my centerpiece plant in this bed, but it will be several years before it is impressive.  To the left, just coming out of dormancy, are my Philippine Violets.  This is a ground cover plant that likes shade, and has little purple and while flowers throughout most of the summer.  I also have a perennial wild flower of some sort that sprang up on its own.  It blooms purple flowers, and it is very pretty.  It is just peeking out of the earth now after the long winter.  At the far end are Chicherees and Paperwhites.  It took several years to fill this bed.  It goes through several periods of beauty - the paper whites bloom first while it is still winter.  The bearded irises bloom in the very early spring.  Then the Bluebells.  The columbines bloom after that.  The wild flowers bloom next, and finally the althea blooms in the middle of summer. 

Crushed Granite Progress March 29, 2014

 No trouble at all!

Purple Columbine March 29, 2014

I have made a lot of effort over the past several years moving columbine seedlings from the paths where they spring up (unwanted) to other flower beds.  I have this pretty little columbine growing everywhere.  And now it is in bloom all over the place - in the shady parts of the Star Garden, in the Infinity Garden, the Shade Garden, and in the back yard. It has a very compact growth habit, very neat in appearance as opposed to, say the Hinckley Columbine which is a Texas native.  I love the Hinckley too, but they grow very differently.  My Hinckleys are not blooming yet, but they are in bud.  Columbines are beautiful flowers.

Red Buckeye March 29, 2014

 I planted this tree in December 2008.  I really like the shape of the leaves.  It blooms in the spring.  The flowers are tubular and very attractive to butterflies.  This tree has a tap root, so it is very drought tolerant.  But when the summer gets really hot - August time frame - Red Buckeyes drop their leaves.  It's a survival mechanism to help the tree make it through the driest part of the summer.  Basically it is bare branches 6 months of the year, a great tree for this area, but not for the front yard in a subdivision.

Weekend at the Farm March 22 - 23, 2014

Saturday was really pretty, Sunday was cold and gray.

• I went to the herb sale in Round Top on Saturday morning.  I bought some treasures:  4 horehound plants, 3 pineapple sage, 4 lambs ears, 3 Dittany of Crete, 5 absinthe wormwood - this is the real wormwood that absinthe is made from, previously I have only grown ornamental wormwood. 2 Roundleaf Rose Scented Geraniums, 2 Rose Scented Thyme, 1 Hyssop Tea Zuta Levana, 4 rosemary plants, and 4 Lion's Tail.  Everything went into the Medicine garden except the Lion's Tail which is an orange flowering perennial.
• Saturday and Sunday I spread some granite in the Star Garden.
• Saturday afternoon our new neighbors came driving up pulling Bert behind them in the Cub Cadet.  It stalled out when he was driving down the road while inviting the neighbors to the Crawfish Boil.  So we spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening with them.  Since they are about to build out here they were interested in our place.  We drove them around the property on all the trails and showed them the gardens, etc.  Fun people!
• I noticed that some of my Rudbeckia Maxima had seeded along the fence in the Vegetable Garden.  I love that plant, so I was very excited about that.  I transplanted four clumps of it to the Star Garden.
• I planted 7 tomato plants in the Vegetable Garden, most of them heirloom varieties:  2 Beefmaster, 1 Lemon Boy, 1 Better Boy, 1 Pineapple, 1 Mountain Pride, and 1 Rutgers Select. Interplanted with Genovese Basil, also planted 3 Genovese in the Kitchen Herb Garden.
• Last week I seeded the newly cleared area in front of the house with Little Bluestem.  I do not see any of it sprouting.  Last weekend I also spread some TexOk Buffalo grass in the back yard.  No sprouting yet either.
• Spread some seed in the Star Garden and the bed I made in the Rose Garden:  Baby's Breath, Bee Balm, Scarlet Flax, and Laura Bush Petunias.
• Planted a Constance Elliot Passion Vine in the same spot I try to grow a vine every year.  Can't seem to keep anything alive in that spot.  I have a goat wire arbor there, and it really needs something growing over it because it looks pretty ugly just sitting there bare.
• Lettuce from the garden for salad Saturday night.
• I found a group of bulbs sprouting by one of my arbors - I had completely forgotten that I moved some pineapple lilies that were being eaten by voles.  I love surprises like that. 
• Watered here and there.
• Cut away dead vegetation in the Shade Garden.  And I cut away the dead Indigo Spires salvia.  It is coming up from the roots.

Forsythia March 22. 2014

 About the only thing blooming now is the forsythia.  The early blooming bearded irises didn't bloom at all due the late, hard freeze we had several weeks ago.  And the Spanish Bluebells didn't bloom either which totally surprised me, I assume it was due to the hard freeze as well, but I had no idea they were that particular about the cold weather.

Progress on Laying Crushed Granite in the Paths

 There are still a lot of paths left to cover, but I'm pretty happy with my progress.  I want to use up the whole pile of rock before the Crawfish boil.  And I want to finish several weeks before the party so I can focus on other activities during those last two weekends such as cooking, cleaning, and weeding!

Weekend at the Farm March 14 - 16, 2014

 

The forsythia is in full bloom right now.  So pretty!

• Took Friday off to go to the Mercer Plant Sale.  Met Nancy and Lisa there.  Bought 3 Butterfly gingers of an unknown variety (they were really inexpensive), 2 Kinkaku Butterfly gingers, several Gilt Edge Toad Lilies, a Mock Orange, a Styrax Japonicus 'Emerald Pagoda' which is a small tree that blooms white flowers.  I hope I can keep the Mock Orange and Emerald Pagoda alive.  They are both very special trees.  I also bought 2 ground covers called Frogfruit and 2 Spreadleaf asters.  Looks like it's going to drop to 36 tonight.  I hope they stay alive.  I bought $100 of herbs right before the temperature dropped into the 20s a couple of weeks ago.  They didn't make it, needless to say.
• Went to Burton after the plant sale and did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day - napped and lounged and made a pot roast for dinner.  Bert arrived that evening.
• Saturday morning I shredded leaves that I raked last weekend.  Spread some of the leaves in one of the new beds I made and piled the rest up next to the Vegetable Garden.  That is officially the end of leaf shredding for the 2013 - 2014 season.
• Saturday morning and early afternoon I loaded 4 truckloads of crushed granite and spread it in the path that extends from the gate by the Rose Garden all the way to the house. 
• Wandered round and round Saturday evening as I often do, looking at everything, planning, and contemplating life at the farm.
• Sunday I worked in the Orchard for a long time pulling weeds and raking.  I turned some soil over in several places where it was really weedy.  
• I planted all the plants I purchased on Friday.  I put several of the gingers in the Star Garden as well as the ageratum, the Frogfruit, and the asters.  I planted the Toad Lily and the Kinkaku Gingers in the new bed in Bert's Garden.
• Spent the rest of Sunday spreading crushed granite in the paths of the Star Garden, and I finished the little area leading into the Rose Garden that was unfinished.
• My back is aching from all the work!

Digging Up Bearded Irises

 This lot next to a small market in Carmine, TX has a stand of bearded irises that have probably been there for half a century.  I dug up some clumps for myself and Janine Snapp.  I planted mine in the Long Border.

Four Days at the Farm March 7 - 10, 2013

 Above, there are 100 double campernelles about to bloom, and 50 singles that are in full bloom.  Cheerful even on a cloudy day.

 These are double daffodils.  Josh gave them to me for my birthday.

We finally got internet in Burton.  We had it many years ago and cancelled it in an effort to cut costs.  Drove in to Houston on Saturday evening for dinner at Triniti for Nan's birthday, then drove back to Burton.  Cold and rainy Friday and Sturday, but I never complain about rain.

• Spent most of Friday shoveling crushed granite into the cub cadet, driving it over to the Star Garden, and spreading it in the paths.  Then the cub broke down.  We put it on the trailer and drove it into town to get repaired.  That put a serious crimp in my weekend plans.  Twelve yards of crushed granite and no way to move it over a long distance.  We had it dumped in the front of the property because those heavy dump trucks can really mess up the driveway.  After that I concentrated on the path leading to the Rose Garden.  It is almost finished.
• Pruned several roses in the Rose Garden - the Cadenza, the Star of the Republic, several Belinda's Dreams.  I did some additional trimming on the Bermuda's Kathleen to make the path more manageable. 
• Pulled weeds in the Orchard and the Star Garden.
• Sprayed herbicide on several paths and in the bed that the 75% sculpture sits.
•  Raked leaves around the pool and piled them up next to the shed.  Too wet to shred.
• Cleaned the small oven.  Vacuumed the bedroom and shook out the rugs.  Cleaned the toilets and sinks in the master bath.
• Raked in the Shade Garden, but couldn't get real motivated to work in such cold weather on Saturday.
• My husband put some cedar posts in the Noisette bed in the Rose Garden so that I could pull the long canes upright and out of the path.  Noisettes are low climbers or they can have a sprawling, waterfall habit.  It looks much better, and definitely more passable.
• My husband and I drove in to Carmine so I could dig up some bearded irises I spotted under a tree in an empty field. I'm bringing a clump to Janine Snapp, and I planted several clumps in the Long Border and in the front flower bed.
• Transplanted a plug of Clerodendrun Bungeii to the Shade Garden.
• I planted 4 wild onions in the Rose Garden that Janine gave me last week.    
• Fed the bees some sugar water on Monday evening. Foolishly decided to wear my garden gloves instead of the bee gloves.  Stung six times, maybe more.  My hands are throbbing! 
• We had the propane folks come out and fill our tank.  This is the first time we have had it filled since we built the house.  There was about 20% left.  $472.  Cub Cadet repair $378.  Expensive weekend.

Laying Down Crushed Granite Paths

 It is absolutely an improvement when gravel is laid down in the paths.  Too bad it doesn't last forever.  To keep everything looking good this has to be re-done every couple of years.  A lot of work!  I had to stop working on the Star Garden paths because the cub cadet had to go into the shop for repairs.  It started spewing black smoke.  The gravel pile is pretty far from the Star Garden.  So now I'm working on the path leading into the Rose Garden.  It all has to be done, so the order doesn't matter.