Harvesting and Using my Luffa September 2021

 

These 3 luffa gourds turned brown between the time I left here on Tuesday last week and today (September 13).  It's supposed to rain a lot over the next day or so, so I decided to cut them.  I can hear the seeds rattling when I shake them.  There are 10 or so more on the vines that are still green.  Luffa has the longest growing season of any vegetable-type plant that I've ever encountered.  I sowed the seed in early spring, and the gourds are just now getting ready to pick.   

  

I cut the ends off them and shook out the seeds.  Not all the seeds fell out, so I'm hoping as they continue to dry the rest will come out when the gourd is shake.  Next I peeled them which is very easy to do.        

September 29.  As the luffas continued to dry out many hundreds of seeds fell out as I shook them.  I couldn't believe how many seeds a luffa contains.  Those seed catalogues should be paying me to take them off their hands!  I bought some soap, scents and molds from Michaels.  And I made little soaps with my luffas.  I sliced the luffa into thin sections and placed the luffa slices into the soap molds.  Then I poured the scented soap (I scented my soaps with cucumber essential oils) into the molds.  Then when I pushed the soaps out of the molds (with the luffa embedded in the soaps) I decorated them with raffia and wheat.  They turned out pretty cute.  I might give them away to my Airbnb guests.  Here are some examples.  From the top view you can't see the luffa, but when you turn over the soap you see this ring of luffa.  And when you bathe with the soap you don't need a wash cloth, you have the luffa!

Lantanas September 28, 2021

All my lantanas are beginning to get a second wind now that the evenings are cooling off.  The color combinations are very appealing:  pink and yellow, white and yellow, red and orange, purple, pale yellow, pink and orange.  This year I have not noticed the voles getting to my lantanas which I attribute to my castor plantings.

To the Farm for a Day September 23, 2021

 

I drove up on Wednesday evening and worked all day on Thursday in preparation for guests arriving on the weekend.  I couldn't get anything done last weekend with 5 grandchildren running around.  The weather on Thursday was magnificent.  So beautiful.

• I worked in the Rose Garden all morning.  I did some deep watering in various beds.  I planted 5 Red Shades yarrow in the same bed where I planted the others last week.  As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I am hoping for great things with yarrow.  I have invested quite a bit in it.  I have purchased lots of it including some pink colors planted in the Rose Garden and white planted in Mom's Garden.  I added lots of castor seed around all of them and fertilized with cotton seed meal.  I cut away plants that were encroaching into the paths.  All of the basil plants are huge now since it is the end of summer.  I cut away lots of basil. I deadheaded Heliopsis and spread the seed.  I pulled up some spent celosia in the Vegetable Garden, and I threw the seed heads in the Rose Garden.  Deadheaded roses.  Watered my new honeysuckle that I planted in a bucket.  It was gasping.  I finally pulled up all the Fruity Pebbles growing in paths.  I had dug most of it out last summer and potted it up.  These were the last hold outs.  I have so much of growing in the Rose Garden now that I don't need those precious few.  Weeded, weeded, weeded.  Pulled up spent zinnias.  Cut away cypress vine that was crawling all over everything in the Long Border.
• Next I worked in the Vegetable Garden.   It was pretty dry in there, I had really decreased the watering time in there.  Too much considering I just sowed seeds.  A few red amaranth had toppled over during the high winds last week, so I pulled them up.  Turned the compost piles.  Did some weeding, but it looks pretty good in there.  Lots of lettuce seedlings in the bucket, not much of anything germinated in the bed.  Germination is poor for my kale as well.  I sowed some more.  I amended the soil and sowed beet seeds. 
• In Mom's Garden I planted a perennial fleabane that I bought from Anne Thames last week.  I cut away Moonflower vine that was crawling all over one of my Mexican Buckeye trees.  Cleaned up a bit in there.  Added water to the water trough.  Looks good in there.  It's time to pull up the cleome.  Although that variety did not make seed (at least as far as I can tell), it was an excellent bloomer all summer long.  I don't know what I will replace it with.  I threw zillions of white Larkspur in there last spring, so they should be coming up soon.  I'm considering just getting a flat of sweet alyssum and planting that in there.  And then I will just wait to see what pops up around it.  Alyssum will make a pretty show all winter and into early spring. 
• Watered my broken zone 11 bed.
• Watered the pots around the pool.
• The butterflies continue to be beautiful and entertaining.  I saw a lot of the black and blue iridescent ones (there are several varieties and I can't tell the difference between them) which I was glad of because I haven't seen many of them this year.  
• The rest of my activities were inside clean up.  Headed home about 3:00. 

White Butterfly Ginger September 19, 2021

 These 2 ginger blooms were outstandingly beautiful today.  What a great summer I have had with my gingers this year.  My peach gingers are still blooming beautifully, and now these gorgeous flowers!  There are more buds on my butterfly gingers to look forward to as well.

Time at the Farm September 12 - 19, 2021

 

This is Pringle Aster.  Huge, gangly, unruly, planted in the wrong spot.  But I love it.

I arrived on Sunday evening after staying with Molly while the Stevenson group went to an Astros game for Mark's birthday present.  It was dark when I got to Burton.  Bert was already here.  He had been hunting and drove through cotton country on the way back.  He stopped and picked a boll for me.  I pulled out all the seeds and put them in my seed box.  I'll grow them next summer, the grandkids might get a kick out of that.

• Monday.  Worked.
• During lunch I harvested a bunch of my basil and made some pesto.  I froze it in pieces to use later.
• Turned the compost.
• After work I amended the soil in a large area in the tall raised bed with Texas Greensand, DE, cottonseed meal and Lava Rock.  Planted a collard and a mustard. 
• Tuesday.  Worked.
• Before work I went out to the Rose Garden and watered a few spots.  It didn't end up raining, looks like the whole front will pass us by unfortunately.  
• I cut away some salvias and basil that were leaning into roses and other plants I like.
• I gathered seed from my Heliopsis.  I sowed it in the pots in the Vegetable Garden that I had previously sown with seed that never germinated.  I'm not surprised that the lantana seed didn't germinate.  But I would have thought I'd have gotten better germination rates from the Heliopsis seed that I sowed some weeks ago.
• I went through my seed box to take inventory.  I threw away all the old lettuce seed.  That doesn't have a long shelf life.
• During lunch I staked all my sugar snap peas.
• Watered here and there. 
• I planted 2 Lemon Sorbet shrimp plants and 4 Creeping Jenny groundcovers in one of the shady beds in the hinterlands of the Star Garden.  I've always shied away from the pale yellow shrimp plant - not showy enough.  But I thought it would look pretty with the yellow-y gold of the Creeping Jenny and together they would brighten up that bed.  I put most of a sack of leaf mold compost in there and turned over the bed.  Added some cottonseed meal.  Turned it all over.  Most of the bed is still a mess of half-dead Ox Eyes (it's really dry in there), wild petunia and weeds.  I dug out a bunch of wild petunia and pulled some weeds.  I poured water into the holes that I dug for the plants, and the earth gave way to a huge vole den.  I went to cut some castor to stuff down the hole.  Our neighbor Ray came by right then and we chatted for a bit.  By the time I got back to my task of stuffing castor down the holes, the voles had backfilled the entire area with soil.  I re-filled the holes with water a bunch of times, but the earth never gave way again.  Voles are quite industrious and ingenious little engineers!  I pushed some castor seed heads down underneath all the plants that I planted.  If they try to eat my plants they will encounter lots of poisonous seeds!  
• After work I spent time in the Vegetable Garden.  I pulled up all the basil plants and zinnias and weeds in the 4 x 4 bed at the back of the garden. I amended the soil and sowed 2 types of carrot seeds - Bolero orange and Pusa Asita Black (a variety that Josh gave me last spring).  I also cleared out one of my big buckets, amended the soil and sowed lettuce seed.  
• While I was in there I cut away asparagus leaning into the path and Four O'Clocks leaning into the garden that are growing wild on the other side of the fence.
• Dumped a big pile of debris in my erosion spot.  
• Weeded here and there.
• Wednesday.  Worked.
• Before work I went out to Rose Garden and collected seed from my Heliopsis.  I sowed seed in two more pots.
• Back out to the Rose Garden to plant 2 yellow flowered yarrow (yarrow is my new potential favorite, we will see how well it comes back next year.  Many accounts call it invasive, but I haven't had any luck keeping it alive.).  When I dug the holes I found a vole tunnel - they are easy to see and feel because they are so well defined.  I stuffed unripe castor seed heads into the tunnel on each side of the hole where I planted the plants.  They will have to move that poison if they want to use that tunnel.  
• While I was out there I cut away basil that was crowding plants.  Weeded a bit.  Shifted gomphrena so that it wasn't leaning into my young lantanas. 
• I amended the soil and planted another collard and mustard in the Vegetable Garden.  It's astounding how many earthworms are in that tall bed in the Vegetable Garden.  I turn up several with every shovelful I make.  The soil is very heavy and black in there.  I don't actually think of it as good soil - too heavy.  I have been adding lava rock when I amend which is supposed to help aeration. 
• I peeled and de-seeded my luffa gourds.  Not all the seeds shook out.  I'm drying them further on the kitchen table to see if the rest of the seeds fall out.  
• During lunch Bert and I drove out to Anne Thames native plant nursery.  I bought a Retama tree.  It is very small, but it is a fast growing tree.  And I am a very patient person. Retama trees have really pretty yellow flowers and interesting leaves and green branches.  Very excited about my purchase!  I put it in the Vegetable Garden so it will get some water.  I don't think I'll plant it until later in the fall or early winter. 
• After work I planted several red yarrow in the Rose Garden.  I spread zinnia seeds from seed heads that I'd thrown down some time back.  I just picked them up off the ground and rubbed them between my fingers and let the seed float down to the ground.  Pulled up peppervine in lots of the beds.  Weeded.
• I pulled more seed heads off my Heliopsis and sowed them in more pots in the Vegetable Garden.  All the pots have been re-started with seed now.  If I throw down seed now it will be straight into the beds.
• Thursday.  Worked.
• Before work I planted 3 red yarrow in the Caldwell Pink bed.  Spread some fertilizer and mulched around them.
• Took a walk around the gardens in the cool morning air.  Feels like fall.  Why is the sunshine so achingly beautiful in the fall?
• During lunch I planted the last 2 red yarrow next to the other 3 that I planted in the morning.  Mulched.  I drove more bamboo stakes through the chicken wire and down into the ground to secure my barrier around that bed.  Armadillos are still getting in there and turning everything upside down.  
• Spread Heliopsis seed in several beds in the Rose Garden.
• I moved the armadillo trap in the Shade Garden over to the Star Garden.  There is a hole under the shed leading into the Star Garden where an armadillo is getting in.  I set the trap right there and blocked off with big rocks any way that he could avoid going into the trap.  Now we wait.
• After work I did some watering here and there.  
• I finally planted a Japanese Honeysuckle on the front arbor of the Rose Garden.  This plant is a major no-no.  It is on the invasive list.  It smells so good, though!  And who doesn't remember as a child pulling the stamen out of the flower and tasting the drop of honey nectar? But, I had instant buyer's remorse when I brought it home.  I finally dug a huge hole in the raised bed on the side of the arbor and planted the honeysuckle in a five gallon bucket with no hole in the bottom.  The roots cannot spread out of that bucket.  The berries can still be eaten by the birds and spread by their droppings into the woods.  But I will try to be vigilant about cutting them away before they ripen.  
• I spread ant poison in a few places in the Rose Garden.  
• I propped up a chicken wire enclosure in the Star Garden where I have a bed full of Philippine Lilies growing.  It was leaning over and the armadillos had crawled over the enclosure and rooted up most of the lilies.  I fixed the enclosure, but alas, too late.
• I drove some stakes into the ground to keep one of my cedar edgings from rolling out into the path.  I've been meaning to do that for awhile, so good for me.
• Dropped some debris into one of my erosion spots.  
• Collected some Frostweed seeds and spread them in a shady bed.
• Went to have Mexican food in Burton.  When we got home I took a flashlight and went out to check on my armadillo trap.  There was an armadillo in that flowerbed!  He tried to escape by leaving through the hole I blocked.  Unfortunately the entrance to the trap was facing the opposite direction.  I thought he would be entering from the shed, not leaving from the garden.  He couldn't get out, so he started running around the edge of the garden along the fence line.  "Bert!"  I'm yelling, "Go get your gun!"  The armadillo ran into the den that he dug in the garden some days past amongst my Four O'Clocks.  "Just shoot into the hole!"  I'm yelling.  Bert was reluctant, but he finally stuck the barrel of the gun down the hole and shot.  Then shot again (at my insistence).  That nasty armadillo may not be dead, but I imagine he doesn't feel very good right now.
• Friday.  Worked.  
• Look what was in my trap Friday morning!!  Success!  This is not the one I was chasing the night before.  This one is a lot bigger.  He was coming from the woods through the shed and trying to get into the garden, and he walked right into my trap. 

• I was so excited about my armadillo conquest that I didn't get much else done before work.
• I sowed another row of kale.  
• During lunch I sprayed herbicide in the Star Garden, around the pool, in the Orchard, the Vegetable Garden, Mom's Garden, and the Rose Garden.
• Picked up the girls in the afternoon for our big camping weekend.  I showed them my armadillo, and we all drove up to the top of the road and let him go next to a tank.  Bert picked up Sam, Charlie and Luke on Saturday morning.  Me and the kids swam, ziplined, S'mores, camped in the tent.  Probably the longest night of my life laying on the hard ground with five kids smushed into one tent.  Bert and I drove all the kids back to Houston on Sunday afternoon.

Color in the Gardens September 16, 2021

 This is the Rose Garden.  Orange and hot pink together.  I just throw things in beds and the colors sometimes swear at each other.

This is the Star Garden.  The white coral vine, purple Mexican salvia, orange butterfly weed and coral cannas.

This is the Star Garden.  This almost looks like I coordinated these colors to go together, but the pink althea in the background tells the real story - I just stick stuff in the ground with no regard for design.

Pringle aster looks like clouds when it is full bloom.  Too bad it is so gangly.

Beautyberry September 16, 2021

 This Beautyberry shrub in the Shade Garden looks so pretty right now.