Time at the Farm September 27 - October 2, 2021

 

This is a Queen butterfly sipping from a milkweed plant.

I arrived on Monday at noon just after our Airbnb guests left.  The dogs were with me and Bert came up on Tuesday.  

• The Vegetable Garden still looked dry, so I watered it.
• I watered the yarrow in Mom's Garden.
• I am keeping a watchful and happy eye on a celosia coming up in the Star Garden.  Some years ago (many in fact) I collected some seed on some celosia at the Antique Rose Emporium.  I wasn't sure they would appreciate it, so I did it surreptitiously.  I threw the seed down in one of the beds in the Star Garden and never thought another thing about it.  So here we are years later, and I think the red foliage plant coming up in that bed is this celosia. After all this time.  The plants at the Rose Emporium were very tall - six feet tall or so.  I am patiently waiting to see what this plant looks like in a month or so.  I collect so much seed and throw it down in beds that I can't be sure where it came from when it finally germinates (if it ever does). 
• I registered to be a monarch butterfly waystation.  It's not hard to do, you just fill out a form.  But you get a cool metal sign to hang up!  I am definitely a monarch butterfly waystation.  There are so many monarchs out there right now.  And I have so many varieties of nectar plants and many dozens of milkweed plants.  I certainly qualify.  The program is more to raise awareness of the seriousness of the monarch decline than anything else.  People see the signs and ask questions, etc.
• Tuesday.  Worked.
• I went out very early, not quite light outside, and watered my carrot patch with a sprinkler watering can.  That bed seems to be really dry.  On the other hand, I see the carrots are beginning to sprout (always a thrill), so they must be okay.  I also watered one of my pea patches.  The peas in that bed don't look too good compared to the other pea beds.  That bed had a lot of mulch mixed in it.  I don't think they like all that rough stuff in there.  But it was also dry.  
• I have a plan worked out for my next armadillo trap.  I'm going to set up boards that funnel the armadillo into the trap.  They are so blind they won't notice they are being herded into the trap. The only trick is setting it up where they will likely walk.  There are 2 beds in the Rose Garden that they destroy particularly often.  I will focus on those for my trap.  Heh heh heh.
• Watered my broken station 11.  Can't seem to get the guy out here to repair it.  I understand - not much money in sprinkler repair.  He is a landscaper and doesn't want to mess with such small dollars.
• Spent some time cutting back the Rudbeckia in the front bed.  I cut all the flowerheads and threw them in the bed.  More to do there - I have a lot of Rudbeckia in the front bed.
• Watered my fig tree.  While I was down there I pulled weeds.
• During lunch I cut back the Beautyberry in Mom's Garden in preparation for moving it later.  It sprang up on its own, and I don't want it there because it is not white.  Also, I have 2 New Jersey Tea shrubs that I am going to plant there.
• Weeded for a bit in the Star Garden.  Deadheaded roses.
• It clouded up, and I thought we might get rain.  We sure need it.  But the sky cleared up and we were left with a sunny day all day long.
•  I learned a little trick reading in one of my organic vegetable gardening books.  I have been trying it for a month or so, and it really works.  I clear a section of garden bed where I plan to plant something in a couple of days.  Rough up the soil then smooth it out.  Let the sun bake it.  Then do it again (as many times as you want to do this is fine).  That kills all the weed seeds.  You expose them to the sun and the sun kills them.  Once you do that a few times many, many weed seeds are killed.  Your beds are much more weed-free.  It really works.  I did this to 3 beds in the Vegetable Garden in preparation for sowing some seeds.
• I pulled up red celosia in the Vegetable Garden and distributed the seed heads throughout beds in the Rose Garden.
• Cut my hot pink phlox down to the ground in one of the beds in the Star Garden.  
• I also trimmed some huge limbs off my Mexican Torch sunflower.  They get so heavy they just shear off.  They don't die because they are holding on by a thread.  But they get in the way.  If they fall nicely in a bed I let them stay because they will bloom. 
• Trimmed my Hot Lips salvia away from a path.  
• I cut back a big salvia in the Star Garden hoping to get a flush in October.  I didn't cut it to the ground, just about halfway.  
• I finished deadheading my Rudbeckia in the front bed and threw all the seed heads into the bed (as usual).
• I dug a big hole for the Beautyberry I'm planning to move from Mom's Garden.  Filled the hole many times with water.  
• The Bur Oak that Connie gave me has tiny new leaves coming out, so I know it will make it.  Yay.  I will be dead and gone before I see one of the magnificent acorns that it produces - they say it can take 35 years before you see the first crop of acorns.  But I am a good steward of the land, and I will grow it for the next generation.
• Turned the compost piles.
• After work I raked a big wheelbarrow-ful of pine needles to lay down in the Vegetable Garden in the morning.
• Dumped a big truckload of debris that I accumulated all day into one of my erosion places.
• Set up my armadillo traps in the Rose Garden. 
• Wednesday.  Worked.  It rained the night before, we really needed it.  And there is lots of rain in the forecast.
• Checked my traps.  Nothing.  And with lots of wet earth for them to root around in looking for grubs, I might not get anything.
• I dug up the Beautyberry in Mom's Garden and moved it to the bed where I planted the Lemon Sorbet shrimp plant and Creeping Jenny last week.  
• I laid down pine needles around my mustards and collards in the Vegetable Garden.
• During lunch I planted 3 cabbages - 2 in a bed and one in a bucket.  Three cabbage plants are enough!  And you can get more than one cabbage from a plant, one will be big and the others will be baseball or golf ball size (that is if you can keep the cabbage worms off them).  Prepped the soil first.  Surrounded them with pine needles as mulch.
• I prepped a bed and sowed some dill.
• I prepped a bucket and sowed some parsnip seeds.  I really like parsnips in stews.  
• I prepped a bed where I had terrible germination of lettuce seed, and I sowed some broad leaf arugula.  I have the skinny leaf variety of arugula growing in the garden right now, but that kind is so painstaking to harvest.  It is blooming right now, so I am letting the bees have it for now.  But I plan to pull it up before it reseeds. 
• I roughed up the soil in a large section of a bed in the newest part of the Vegetable Garden and sowed rye grass for a green manure.  When it is several inches tall I will turn it under to rot in preparation for spring planting.
• After work I did the same again with the rye grass in another patch in that same large bed in the Vegetable Garden.  
• I sowed cilantro seeds in one of my big feed buckets.  
• I sowed kale seeds and parsnips in a bed in the Vegetable Garden.  Hopefully the coming rain will not pelt it into oblivion.
• The butterflies continue to entertain me.  And the honey bees.  And the bumble bees.  So plentiful.  My Pringle Aster is absolutely alive with insect activity.  
• Spoke to Blake.  Sammy needs glasses.  Well, we all went through it in this poor-sighted family.  He loves wearing glasses, though.  He went through a Harry Potter phase when he wore round plastic glasses all the time.
• Thursday.  Worked.  No rain.  
• Checked my traps.  One of them had been sprung, but there was no armadillo inside.  Not only did he escape, he managed to tear everything up in the bed as well.
• During lunch I worked in Mom's Garden.  I planted one of the New Jersey Tea shrubs I ordered from an online  native plant nursery in the spot where I dug out the Beautyberry the day before.  Surrounded it with chicken wire.  It is going to kill me, but I have to cut down a gorgeous nicotiana sitting right in front of it.  It will crowd the shrub.
• While I was there I started hacking away at all the Moonflower growing on the fence.  There was so much of it.  It had completely covered up my Icecap rose, and my climber was in even worse shape with the vine totally enveloping it.  I knew it had happened, but I was torn between the beauty of the Moonflower and the death of my roses.  Both roses are still alive, although both are worse for wear.  I will give them a fighting autumn chance.  If any weather can do it, it is a Texas autumn and early winter.  Those are all great months for Texas.  I collected handfuls of moonflower seeds as I worked.  Still more to do there, but ran out of time. 
• I worked on a bed in the Star Garden (pulling a few weeds, smoothing the soil that had been disturbed from armadillos) and planted a Chinese Hat shrub.  Chinese Hat is a very pretty shrub with althea-like leaves.  They have pale pink flowers with pale blue bracts in the fall.  I have never grown it, but I get the impression it freezes down to the roots each winter.  I guess that behavior makes it more of a perennial than a shrub.  Anyway, I thought I would give it a try, it wasn't very expensive.  Surrounded it with chicken wire.
• Went to Debra's to pick up some pink coral vine she had dug up and offered me.
• After work I planted my other New Jersey Tea shrub in Mom's Garden.  Surrounded it with chicken wire.  Fertilized both of my new, tiny little shrubs.
• I continued cutting away Moonflower vine from my two roses.  I now have a big gap of sunshine and space for my roses.
• I pruned the two roses - Mdm Alfred Carriere and Icecap.  Fertilized them both with cottonseed meal.  Watered it in well.
• I pulled up the giant Peace Pipe Nicotiana that was blocking my New Jersey Tea shrub.  Boy, was I sorry to do that.  All the foliage went into the compost pile, so at least it was used.
• Watered my 2 new rye grass patches in the Vegetable Garden.  And shot some water across my carrot bed.  
• I planted 2 Red Shades yarrow in the Rose Garden.
• I set up my armadillo traps again with a new plan.  And Bert gave me his advice which was good regarding placement of the cages.  Now we wait.
• I planted all the pink coral vine in the Rose Garden - some on the old dead tree and some in the front arbor box next to the (invasive) Japanese Honeysuckle.  
•  Friday,  Worked.  Lots of rain the night before and was still pouring in the morning.
• Checked my traps.  Nothing.
• During lunch I did some weeding in the Star, Rose and Water gardens.
• I see that most of the Oxblood Lilies I dug out of the Star Garden and planted in the Rose Edge Border have popped up.  They will be really lovely as they multiply each successive year.
• After work I did not much of anything.  There is not much to do.  The weeds are almost non-existent because it has been so droughty through August.  But, since we have had so much rain the last several days. weeding will become a challenge next week.
• Bert and I drove to various places and sat in the truck talking about the gardens.  I have a new idea for a garden that I discussed with him.  Unfortunately we want the same area.  There is a space just on the other side of Mom's Garden that is full sun.  No trees.  He uses the space to do the Crawfish Boil bonfire, and he burns off various other brush piles there as well.  So he definitely has laid claim to the space.  Dilemma.  
• Saturday.  Checked my traps.  Nothing.  I will spring them before I leave. I wouldn't want an armadillo trapped in a cage for a week while I'm back in Houston, suffering in that tiny space.
• I went down to the Orchard and worked for about 3 hours.  I pulled lots of weeds.  I pulled up blackberry vines growing in the wrong places.  I pulled up ageratum wherever I found it, there isn't much now since I've been working on eradicating it. But that stuff has an amazing root system, so it is not gone by any stretch of the imagination.  I deadheaded coneflower and crumbled the seed heads back into the beds.  This year Bert and I didn't get down there and fence off the swamp sunflower, so it is leaning everywhere.  I gathered it up and leaned it all over the fence, so at least it looks a little bit better.  I pulled up lots of basil in the blackberry beds.  Raked throughout. 
• I also worked in the beds at the entrance to the Orchard.  There was a lot of crabgrass in there.  And I cut all the branches with berries off the Poke Salad.   The Texas orange lantana that I planted down there last year has really made itself at home - which is fine with me.  But it's so gangly.  I will have to prune it, but not sure if I should prune it right now.  I might cut half of it back to see what it does compared to the un-pruned section over the next month or so.
• All much improved after all that clean up, except the blackberries are really leaning and they need to be pushed back into the center of their beds with rebar.  Rebar is the only thing strong enough to keep the blackberry bramble in place.
• I raked up some pine needles from one of the trails and laid them down on one end of a blackberry bed to try and keep down the weeds.
• Sprinkled Sevin dust on my cabbages and greens.  Little tiny caterpillars have hatched and are beginning to munch.  I killed some by hand, but I won't be here until next week and no telling how many I missed killing not to mention eggs that haven't yet hatched.
• Laid down ant poison here and there.  
• Several of my Mexican Torch plants toppled over, so I pulled them out of the Star Garden and loaded them into the truck.
• Dumped a big truckload of debris in several of my erosion spots.
• Cleaned up all my tools, set up all my sprinklers for the week.  Headed home for dinner at Blake's for my birthday (which turned out to be a surprise party with my entire family in attendance.  They had hired a chef and a server, so none of us had to do any work at all.  Sixty years old.  Ugggh.)