Weekend at the Farm Feb 9 - 11, 2024

 

RAIN!  Yay!

Slept in on Saturday.  We got some good rain, and it stayed cloudy and rainy all day which was fine with me.  I'll catch up on my sunshine in July.

There are buds on all the paperwhites.  Next weekend the air will be filled with their scent.  I love it, but Bert thinks it stinks.  There's no accounting for taste!

I began the process of cutting back dead debris.  I'd like to wait a bit longer because it's great for overwintering insects, etc. as well as insulation for the plants, but there is so much to do that I need to start.  I cut back  Henry Duelberg salvias, Southern woodfern and fragrant white mistflower.  

Pulled weeds in the Dining Room bed.

Turned the compost piles.

Put a load of debris in an erosion spot near the house.

I weeded in the beds along the back of the house.

I cleaned out the area near the Medicine Garden where I have a hot pink Oxalis colony.  It is a natural area, and it looks very charming when the Oxalis is in bloom.

I cut some blue spruce sedum that was cascading over the edge of a wheelbarrow serving as a planter.  I pressed a handful into a bed in Mom's Garden and a handful into a bed in the Greenhouse Garden.  Hopefully it will thrive and make a pretty grey-blue groundcover.

I weeded in the Kitchen Herb Garden.  I asked Bert to put a fence around the bed before it gets warm.  It's a pretty big bed.  The armadillos really mess with it.  It's next to impossible to get anything to thrive in there because almost every warm night of the year it is turned upside down.

Sunday.  Slept in.  Not expecting to do too much before we head to Houston for the Super Bowl at Mom and Dad's house.

I fertilized some of my baby trees around Mom's Garden.  I cut back the fragrant white mistflower and fertilized.  Fertilized the oakleaf hydrangea.

Fertilized in the Shade Garden (coralberry, my camellia, the Arkansas oak, the ferns and the bluebells).

Fertilized the bluebells along the driveway and the bridal wreath and maple leaf oak in the Circle Drive.

I lightly pruned some roses in the Rose Garden.  And I pulled up brown eyes and other seedlings that were growing under the roses.

Soaked overnight and then sowed a couple of packets of Sweet Peas around a trellis.  I found them in my seed box and decided to stick them in the ground, hopefully it's not too late.

Weekend at the Farm February 2 - 4, 2024

 

We got some good rain while we were here.  And we were lucky to get about 5 inches last week. 

I listened to the quarterly NPSOT meeting from 9:00 to 1:00 with my ear buds on while I worked out in the garden.

I dug up 4 or so clumps of Southern Wood Fern from the Dining Room bed and moved them to the Shade Garden.  There is a spot at the edge of the Shade Garden that used to be gorgeous with ferns.  The last 2 years of drought have really knocked it back,  The first year injured it, but the second year engraved the headstone.    

I moved 3 or so clumps of peach cannas that were growing right under my Strawberry Smoothie althea.  I just had to move them a few feet.  

The Snowball Viburnum died after all these years.  I pulled it up out of the ground easily,  There is already a Texas Mountain Laurel planted there because I could tell the Viburnum was dying. 

Spent several hours raking leaves.  I weeded in the Daffodil Border and laid down piles of leaves over the areas that I weeded.  I got most of the bed done.  The Sweetness Daffodils are about a foot tall now.  I fertilized the whole border just when they appeared, about a month ago.  I am hoping for a floriferous spring.  Last spring was not amazing.  I'm going to thin them after they finish blooming. 

Collected some little woodland violet seeds and pressed them between the pages of a book.  

For the rest of the day I dug chickweed out of flowerbeds where ever I saw it as I walked around the gardens. 

The weather was so beautiful  One of those perfect days when the sun is shining and the temperature is so perfect that you don't even feel the air.  It is neither hot nor cold.  There were lots of Red Admirals out and about.

Sunday.  Windy.  I raked leaves in Mom's Garden and spread them in the Daffodil Border.  

I dumped one of my compost buckets into the Vegetable Garden beds.  Turned over the other three buckets.

I dug up 2 blue mistflower plugs and planted them in the Vegetable Garden.  

I dug up a white mistflower and planted it in Mom's Garden.

I collected and spread some handfuls of Black Seeded Moudry grass in the shady part of the Star Garden. 

Collected and spread blue mist and fragrant white mistflower seeds in various beds as well as Pringle Aster seed.

Dug out the rest of the peach cannas growing underneath the althea and stuck them in the ground nearby.

Collected some Velvet Leaf Senna seeds to give to Anne Thames.  Native Plant meeting at 2:00 at Los Patrones, then home to Houston after that.  

 

 

Weekend at the Farm January 12 - 15, 2024

 

I am amazed and delighted that I had this random iris bloom (and that I spotted it - what luck) growing in the garden by the dining room.  I cut it brought it into the house before the big freeze that is coming on Tuesday.  I admired it all 3 days I was here.

Nathan and family came for the weekend.  

I pulled up both heads of lettuce out there in the Vegetable Garden.  Beautiful bunches of red and green leaf lettuce.  It tasted so good!

I pressed some flowers - 2 red shrimp flower - the last blooms of summer, and 1 Debutante camellia bloom.   I might lose all my camellia buds and blooms tomorrow.  

And I might lose my little Italicus daffodils that are in bud right now.  This will be year 3 that I have been growing these bulbs, and I have never had flowers.  They have been nipped by hard freezes every year.  Well, at least I understand that, when it does happen, when they go all the way from bud to bloom, it will be a really special season.  

Monday I made some suet and put it out in 2 feeders.  It's 20 degrees.  The birds have already found it.  Bert put a tray of water out by one of the feeders.  Everything else is frozen solid.

Below, how cool is this?  This is Frostweed, a Texas native.  When it freezes, the stems burst and all the water in the stems creates these ice ribbons.  Bert came back from a drive around the property very intrigued by something he saw on his drive.  I got in the truck with him and he drove me over to show me his find.  It was Frostweed.  So it made me remember that I have some growing in one of my gardens.  So we drove back home, and I looked at mine.  This is mine, growing in the Star Garden.  These are ice ribbons.   

Weekend at the Farm January 5 - 7. 2024

 

Here is my new dog.  I rescued her from a gas station.  It took 3 days of trying before she finally let me get her.  I had to shave her because her fur was so matted.  She is heartworm negative and she is not chipped.  Sweet and getting less timid every day.

Saturday.  I worked in the Vegetable Garden most of the day turning over rye grass into the soil for my green manure.  

While I was there I did some raking.

I cut back the asparagus in the small bed and the large bed.  Fertilized both.  Asparagus is a heavy feeder.

Turned over the compost piles in the buckets.  Added leaves to them. 

It was cool and sunny.  A perfect day. 

Sunday.  I did some spring cleaning.  Under and behind furniture.  

Sprayed herbicide here and there.

I spread fragrant mist flower seeds in the Orchard and in several beds here and there where nothing was growing.  

Green Manure January 6, 2024

 Some months ago I sowed rye grass in all the beds of the Vegetable Garden.  I didn't really plant a winter garden this year except for some arugula and lettuce.  I also sowed some parsley that is doing well.  But for the most part, this year I am just doing some soil conditioning.  

Below, I dug all the grass out and turned it under the soil.  It will rot during January and February and be ready for planting in the spring.

Below, another patch of rye, partially turned over.

Below, another before and after.

And another before and after.

And another.  The green that remains is arugula.

And another.  Arugula is the last man standing here as well.

Quick Trip to the Farm December 16 - 17, 2023

 

Bert and I drove up midday Saturday and left midday Sunday.

I wanted to get the rest of my Mangaves into the Greenhouse, and I needed Bert's help with a couple of really big ones.  I also moved the Philodendron to the porch.  It doesn't look like it will freeze next week, but at least that is done.

I filled the fountain with water in Mom's Garden.  

I watered my newest trees. 

I planted my Maple Leaf Oak that I bought at the John Fairie garden a month or so ago.  I planted it in one of the circle drive beds.

A Tree for my Grandson November 23, 2023

 This is a Texas Red Oak.