A Weekend at the Farm 11/24-27/2011

• Thanksgiving day was really lovely. We ate outside under the arbor. Small group, Josh in California and Josh and Blake at Josh's folks' house.
• Had more dirt delivered to the house. Jim delivers my dirt. A sweet older gentlemen that was born, raised, and still lives in Burton. Always wants to talk for a while which is okay with me.
• Planted 50 Gladiolus Byantus Communus in one of the new beds I built last week. These are small bulbs that bloom hot pink flowers. The flowers look similar to the gladiolas that are sold in the store, but they are smaller. These are the species glads that grow wild on the hillsides of Turkey.
• Built a new bed and planted the other 50 glads in that bed. Blake gave me these bulbs for my birthday.
• Finished filling a bed that I started last week.
• Moved 10 Philippine Lily seedlings into the new bed from a bed that has lots of things growing in it that are not compatible with the lilies.
• Dug up some bluebonnet seedlings that were growing in various paths and moved them into the Rose Garden and the Star Garden.
• Fertilized the Erlicheer Daffodil bed.
• Mulched part of a bed in the Orchard that was prone to weediness.
• Weeded the Orchard.
• Adjusted the sprinklers, reduced the number of days and times to water.
• Rained hard on Saturday. Sat on the porch and watched the rain.
• Was alone on Friday. For dinner I ate some Swiss Chard from the garden.
• Got really cold on Sunday. I'm ready for winter, the sooner it gets here the sooner it's gone.
• Leaves are beginning to fall. I will start shredding next weekend and putting them in the compost pile. The leaves won't be too bad this year. The oaks didn't leaf out too much due to the drought. And there are hardly any acorns. The deer will suffer this winter.
• Left early on Sunday.

A Weekend at the Farm 11/19-20/2011

Sowed the last of my wildflower seeds: BabyBlue Eyes, Ox Eye Daisy, California Poppy, Golden Yarrow, Tickseed. It will be a beautiful spring.

Planted 200 Naples Garlic bulbs that Josh got me for my birthday. Planted in various beds.

Weeded and weeded.

Watered the Greenhouse Gardens.

Raked some fallen leaves.

Cleaned the house.

Mulched the shrubs along the Boardwalk.

Bulbs are beginning to pop up out of the ground - Grand Primo, Erlicheer, Montbretias, Hoop Petticoats, Rolf Fiedler Star Flowers, irises - spring! spring! spring!

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