A Weekend at the Farm 11/5-6/2011

Hard to believe, but we had a hard freeze in Burton! It happened a full month earlier than the average first freeze date. All my vines, annual flowers, and tender perennial vegetation died. This year has been the worst! I thought we would finally get some gorgeous weather that would create a beautiful fall garden - and what did we get? A freak cold snap that killed everything. The worst drought in memory and now an early freeze.

• Pulled up my green bean plants because they froze. Nematodes, but not too bad.


• Buried orange peel in the vegetable boxes. The oranges came from my tree in the back yard in Houston. Many dozens of oranges on my tree.


• Mulched some of my roses in the Rose Garden.


• Mulched all the fruit trees except for the peach trees.


• Weeded, weeded, weeded.


• Saturday built a long bed about 35 feet long and 4 feet wide and a smaller bed about 5 x 5 in the Star Garden. Lots of work! The long one has a sprinkler right in the middle of it which will have to be put on an extension. All the soil I bought is gone.


• Turned the soil in the rose boxes where the Ballerina roses are growing and sowed two packets of mixed wildflower seeds.


• Sowed California Poppy, Rocket Larkspur, and Ox Eye Daisy in the Rose Garden and the new beds.


• Mulched the Anacachoe Orchid Tree.


• Cleaned the bird baths and filled them with water.


• Filled the bird feeders.


• Watered shrubs in the Greenhouse Garden.


• Planted 1015 onion sets in the Vegetable Garden and planted the leftover onions in one of the beds I built last week.


• I was so tired Sunday! I wore myself out on Saturday. Left about 3:00 on Sunday. Took a nap at home.

Pennyroyal

Pennyroyal is in the mint family. It is a very pretty spring green color, very cheery. As you can see from the pictures, it makes a thick blanket of green. Mine is growing in partial shade. In Texas, an herb that normally should grow in full sun can grow very happily in partial shade because the sun is so brutal here. Exceptions to that rule are flowering herbs. Flowering herbs won't bloom profusely in partial shade.

Pennyroyal is a medicinal herb. Tea made from pennyroyal is an abortifascient. (It will cause a fetus to abort.) Very powerful stuff.

If you let pennyroyal creep out into your garden paths, it will emit a wonderfully minty smell when you walk over it and crunch it under your feet.

Aztec Sweet Herb

Aztec Sweet Herb is a perennial ground creeper. Mine is growing in a shady place, and it seems to be very happy. This plant is 1000 times sweeter than sugar, but the camphor content is so high that it cannot be used as an artifical sweetener. Use of this plant can be traced back to the times of the Aztecs as a treatment for coughs, colds, asthma, and bronchitis.

The leaves are tasty to chew, although the camphor flavor is certainly noticeable.

Artemesia in the Herb Garden

This is "Powis Castle' Artemesia. Artemesia is one of the most useful non-flowering plants to have in the garden due to its silver color. So pretty. Great in a pastel border or a night garden or a white garden. It is also pretty planted in dappled shade such as the location above. I have some growing in the Long Border and in the Infinity Garden.

Its use as a medicinal herb (Wormwood) has fallen out of favor. It was the key ingredient in the liquor absinthe. Wormwood is now known to have serious side effects.

Views of the New Fence

Views of the Garden

Pink zinnias, pink Autumn Sage, and Pink Muhly Grass.

The Infinity Garden is finally starting to perk up after a brutal summer. I lost a lot of my medicinal herbs, but next summer I'll give it another go.

Blue Fortune Agastache, red salvia, hollyhock seedlings, and Cassian Fountain Grass.

Cosmos, Pink Autumn Sage, grasses, and Pink Muhly.

What's Blooming Now - White Mist Flower 10/29/2011

The White Mist Flower is starting to open - it is a fall bloomer. It is a huge favorite of bees. This plant dies to the ground in the winter, and comes back from the roots. In the spring it can be cut back to the ground. It gets about 3 feet tall and wide.