The 200th Post

This blog now has 200 posts! I thought I'd do a bit of an overview of how things have been going since I first started this blog.

Most significantly, when I first started this blog, I was unemployed and living in a rented house with my boyfriend. Since then I've found a job, we've gotten married, and bought a house. I don't post nearly as often as I did when I was unemployed and had a lot of time on my hands, but I still try to at least do my garden updates every full moon.

Since we moved into our house, we've done a lot of work on it, but there are still a lot of projects on our to-do list.

Here is the garden in the front. This used to be a patch of mostly dead-looking Bermuda grass that the previous inhabitants parked cars on. Now it has four 4'x20' raised beds made of cedar on it. In the future I'd like to make pathways between them with landscape fabric and cedar bark mulch, and put a small fence around it to keep out the deer and chickens. Right now I have cylinders of wire around a lot of the plants to protect them from getting dug up and eaten, but I'd like a more permanent solution. Still, I think this is a big improvement over what this patch used to look like.

This is mostly my husband's project. In addition to our personal vehicles, he has a work truck, so he built an extension to our driveway with crushed granite, and in between he made this xeric garden. The cenizo was already there, so he built the garden around it with more crushed granite and lined with limestone. Right now it has two prickly pears, an agave, and some Indian blanket. We'd like to add more wildflowers and some type of round or cylindrical cactus, and maybe some kind of yuccas. Except there might not be enough room for that, so now we're looking at the other side of the front yard.

This flowerbed on the other side of the driveway came with the house, but it's not in very good shape. It goes from the driveway all around to the side of the house, and it's made of landscape timbers that are pretty rotten. A lot of the soil is washed out of it, and it's full of weeds. I planted the irises and cannas my mother-in-law gave me here, and there is a dwarf yaupon and boxwood that were there when we moved in. There are also several lantanas, but everything else in there are undesirable weeds. What we've decided to do is make this match the xeric garden on the other side of the driveway. We'll remove the rotten timbers are replace them with more limestone rocks. My husband actually wants to expand it a bit so it comes out further from the house, and that's good because it will reduce how much lawn we have even more. The main difference between this area and the xeric garden along the driveway is this side is much shadier from the big oak trees, so we'll have to put in more shade-tolerant plants. That might be a good thing, though. Limestone and crushed granite can make it match the garden on the other side of the driveway, but having it transition into different species of plants will make it more interesting.

We also discovered something nice when we put the crushed granite in on the other side. The color of crushed granite matches the color of the bricks of our house, so that looks even better than we thought it would.

My husband wanted to plant a hedge along the front of the front yard to provide more privacy. The big oak trees make a nice canopy near the house, but there wasn't really any understory. He planted a few native shrubs right under the oak trees, like yaupon and evergreen sumac, but out here which is not directly under the oak trees, I wanted fruit trees. In the foreground of the above picture is a fig, then after that is a loquat.

Then beyond the loquat we have a kumquat, Satsuma, Myer lemon, and pomegranate.

Right now they look very unnatural, with cages around them to protect them from deer, and lined up so regularly. I hope that once they grow bigger they start to look more interesting. All these different species get to different sizes and shapes, with the fig and loquat getting pretty large (which is why we put them on the end) and the citruses staying short and shrubby. Eventually we'll take the cages off when they're bigger and not as vulnerable to deer munching on them or rubbing their bark off.

We used to have a key lime out here too, but last winter really hurt it bad, even though we covered all the citrus with frost blankets. Most of its branches got killed, and we thought it was a goner, until it sprouted back from the stump. So we dug it up and put it back in a pot, and replaced it with the kumquat. I guess key limes are not quite cold hardy enough to plant in the ground here.

Here is one of the rain barrels we had at our previous residence (with the potted key lime to the right). Another thing on our to-do list is getting some big water tanks. This little rain barrels are nice but just not enough. In a heavy downpour they overflow in only minutes, and in the middle of summer when it's really dry, we use them up quickly. Now we have room for a couple of really big tanks that hold hundreds of gallons. We'd need to first put rain gutters on our roof (weirdly, our house didn't already have them), and then we think we have room for one tank on each side of the house. We can keep the rain barrels and attach them to our garden shed or something like that.

I think it would be great to hook up the soaker hoses for the vegetable gardens up to the big rainwater tanks. I wonder if I might be able to do all the watering for the vegetables from the rainwater tanks once they are full. That would sure be nice.

After that, I also want to set up some kind of greywater system. My husband says it wouldn't be too hard to divert the washing machine and shower drains outside to water plants.

 

 

Along the side of our house we have a patio that cuts into the hillside a little bit, and is lined with bricks to form a bit of a ledge. When we first moved in, there was nothing growing there except for two esparanzas and two rose bushes. I thought this was a perfect place for an herb garden, so that the patio would be lined with fragrant herbs. Plus it's right by the back door which opens straight into the kitchen.

 

 

The right side is a little shady, so here I planted things like mint, catnip, and lemon balm. My husband planted some yarrow, and has been decorating it with interesting rocks and fossils he's collected over the years.

 

The left side is sunnier, so here's where I have things like rosemary, oregano, thyme, marjoram, sage, etc. Also right now I have basil flourishing in the heat, and parsley going to seed. 

 

Then right along the house I planted some of the more tender herbs so they can be better protected: bay, lemongrass, and pineapple sage. I really should have put the lemon verbena and Mexican mint marigold here too, so I might move them over. My husband put some extra crushed granite here, but I think that actually makes them too hot. My plan is to mulch the herbs with cedar bark eventually, and I think I'll put some bark over here too. When the afternoon sun is hitting this area directly, the pineapple sage gets badly wilted.

Speaking of my husband, this is a project he's been working on. This big hole will eventually be a water garden. It's directly behind the house, and used to be just an open grassy area. Since then my husband has been digging away at it, by hand. He used a shovel for about a foot down until he hit bedrock, and from then on has been using a rock bar. This weekend he finally rented a jackhammer to finish it up. It will eventually have a waterfall, and water plants in it. We thought about putting fish in, but after we read up on it more, it sounds like a lot of trouble. Now we're leaning towards just letting frogs and toads colonize it. We're also looking into powering the waterfall's pump with a solar panel to make it more eco-friendly.

Here is the compost pile in the back that needs some work. Right now it's built of cinderblocks we already had in the yard, and those got full so I had to start piling new stuff beside it. I planted my extra sweet potato plants in it as an experiment. I'd like to make it more permanent and expand it so it has at least two sections, since one is turning out not to be enough.

And finally in the very back corner of the back yard is the other vegetable garden. It's looking a bit messy and neglected, but it does have pole beans, squash, cucumbers, and melons planted in it. I've been putting more effort getting the garden in the front looking nice. The back garden is right next to the old garden shed (which I should have included in the photo, now that I think of it) that came with the house. We'd like to replace it some day, because it's rotting and falling apart. After that I'll probably redo this back garden to make it neater and tidier, maybe putting in some permanent beds and pathways like the front garden is going to have. Removing the old shed will also give us more room. It's taking up some of the sunny area back here, so we're going to put our new shed in the shade, to leave us more room in the sun to plant edibles.

So that's the work we've done so far in the two years we've been living in this house, and what we still have on our to-do list. But we're both very happy to have a big yard like this we can do so many things with. I always wanted a really big vegetable garden and fruit trees, and my husband always wanted a garden pond, so now we can have them.

Parsley Worms Eating All My Dill

The larvae of the Black Swallowtail butterfly are known as "parsley worms" because they feed on members of the Apiaceae family, which includes parsley, dill, fennel, cilantro, carrots, and parsnips. Last year I planted a lot of parsley, and figured it would be enough for both me and the swallowtails. Right now it's starting to flower, and I plan on letting it drop its seeds and regrow.

So did I get parsley worms on my parsley? No, of course not! Instead, they are completely ravaging my dill and fennel, when I only have a few plants of each.

Here's a large one chomping away. They do have really cool markings. Interestingly, you'd think they'd really stand out, but the striped pattern actually breaks up their outlines and helps them camouflage among the feathery foliage.

 

This picture shows how they look when they're smaller (on the left) compared to a larger one on the right.



I was going to let my dill drop seeds too, but at the rate they're going, there will be no dill flowers left to make seeds. They seem to like the flower heads the best.

Now the flower heads have almost nothing left. So much for saving dill seeds this year.

Except I just don't have the heart to do anything to them. They've become like my pets. I know, it's prejudice, because I have no problem killing tomato hornworms.

Guess I'll just have to accept that I'll have a much bigger crop of butterflies this year instead of dill.

Roasted Tomatillo Sauce

I ended up getting about 3 lbs. of tomatillos from my 3 surviving plants. That's actually not much. Tomatillos are supposed to be very prolific. I blame the deer and chickens for damaging the plants so they didn't yield as well.

Tomatillos keep well in their husks in the vegetable drawer in the fridge. I was able to stash them in there until I had enough saved up for a batch of roasted tomatillo sauce. I got the recipe off the internet, but soon found out this isn't really something that needs a recipe. Everything can be done to taste.

Peel the husks off like 2 or 3 lbs. of tomatillos and rinse them. Lay them out on a baking sheet with some serranos and/or jalapenos (cut the stems off) and peel whole garlic cloves. As you can see, the peppers I used had already turned red, which was not intentional, but I didn't get to them while they were still green.

Put under the broiler until the veggies are getting brown in spots and soften. The tomatillos will sort of get squishy and collapse and the juice will run out. Yum.

Let it cool, and then scrape everything in the blender, making sure to get all the juice in. Add cilantro, salt, and lime juice to taste. Blend until smooth.

I put mine in plastic containers and froze it. You can also water-bath can this, but in that case you'd need to be much more careful with the ratios and use an exact recipe. It's especially important to put enough lime juice in to make it acidic enough to be safe.

I didn't put much lime juice in so I can slather it over enchiladas, but more lime would probably be better if you wanted it as a dip. When I tasted it, it also turned out hotter than I intended. I made the mistake of not de-seeding the peppers, and peppers you grow yourself tend to get hotter when the weather is hotter and the plants are under stress. But otherwise it was really tasty.

Speaking of chickens, one day the neighbor's chickens jumped the back fence (they usually stay in the front), and dug through my herb garden. Then two of them forgot how to get back out and just kept pacing back and forth by the fence like they wanted to go home but forgot they can jump over. Stupid chickens! We had to open the gate and herd them out.

Greening Moon - belated full moon update

I'm back! Last week we went on vacation to the Big Bend area, and before that I was really busy with final exams and getting final grades in, so May's full moon post is about two weeks late.

May is supposed to be our wettest month, and we did get around 3 inches of rain, which isn't actually that much, but better than we have been getting.

Lots of things have been happening in the garden that probably deserve their own post. First the neighbor's chickens were causing a lot of damage digging up things in the front garden, then while we were on vacation the deer found it! I also got my sweet potato plants from Duck Creek Farms and planted them. I've been harvesting a few paste tomatoes, but I think the deer are eating a lot of them too. That makes comparing yields from the different varieties I planted difficult. I might have to leave out that bit of data this time around and just compare things like plant vigor and heat tolerance.

I knew I was risking things by planting my Rattlesnake beans in the front, and sure enough, the deer have been eating the leaves off of them. The funny thing is it looks like my deer are lazy, and are only eating the leaves in the middle of the vine, not bothering to bend down to eat the ones near the ground, or stand up to reach the higher ones.

The chickens dug up a lot of the beans, so in their place I planted the rest of my Waltham Butternut squash seeds. There were from Seed Savers Exchange in 2009, and I guess they were getting old because I was having trouble getting them to germinate. I went ahead and planted all the rest of my seeds in the ground before we left, and when we came back some of them were sprouting.

The deer are also eating the ends of the shoots on the tomatoes and peppers. I guess the new growth is more tender. Some of my peppers are getting fruit anyway, but I'm sure the deer have eaten a lot of the blossoms.

Weirdly, they don't seem to like the eggplants. The remaining eggplants I have that didn't get dug up by the chickens are making fruits now. This variety is Fengyuan Purple, and the eggplants growing on it are really long and skinny! The biggest one I have so far looks like it's over a foot long. Guess I need to make some more Thai Green Curry paste to make these into curry with.

The tomatillos aren't looking so good. I've harvested a lot of them, but now it looks like they're starting to die down. I don't know if it's because they aren't getting enough water or something else. The deer haven't bothered them either, even the ones outside the wire cage my husband made for them.

I should be harvesting lots of tomatoes now, but the deer have been mostly beating me to them. When I got back from vacation there were hardly any ripe ones to be found, except for a few that look like this. This is a nice big Red Brandywine with a big chomp out of it. Another annoying this is it appears deer don't know the difference between a ripe and an unripe tomato. Maybe because they're colorblind? I found lots of green tomatoes, including a really nice Opalka that was the size of a Poblano pepper with bites out of them.

The only thing I have left to plant is my okra. Some of them took a really long time to come up, which isn't that unusual with okra. I got three varieties from Native Seeds/SEARCH, all from Texas: Beck's Gardenville, Eagle Pass, and Hill Country Red. I know I'm a bit late on okra planting, but okra can really take the heat, so I think they'll be OK.

Taking a quick look at the herb garden, the Esperanza is starting to overwhelm things again, like I knew it would. The other plants aren't doing too bad though. Herbs really like being in the ground much more than in pots. Once I planted all my herbs in the ground, ones that had been in pots on my apartment balcony for years, they really took off. In the background here is the Mexican oregano flowering like crazy. To the gnome's right is marjoram, while to his left is thyme. Elsewhere in the herb garden I've got Greek oregano, rosemary, peppermint, orange mint, catmint, catnip, lemon balm, yarrow, skullcap, horehound, parsley, and now a few different kinds of basil.

I'm still waiting on the potatoes to die down. It's taking longer than I thought it would. I also haven't harvested the garlic or shallots yet. The garlic still doesn't look good, but the shallots are still pretty green.

This is Tatume squash, a Mexican heirloom that is in the C. pepo species but is supposed to be more resistant to squash vine borers. I planted five, and it looks like the borers already got one, but the others are doing pretty well, so we'll see.

The Moon and Stars watermelon plants are also doing well. I planted four of them. I also just planted three Melon de Castilla plants, a cantaloupe from Native Seeds/SEARCH. 

The Christmas Lima beans are in the back, so the deer aren't eating them, and they're doing great. They're just starting to get blossoms.

Here are my sweet potatoes I just planted right before we went on vacation. They probably deserve a post of their own. They've just gotten settled after transplanting and are starting to grow.

The fava beans just aren't doing too great though. It started getting hot just as they were making pods, so I think they just didn't have enough time. This fall I'll have to plant them much sooner.

OK, that's my update. By now I should be getting my summer crops in if it wasn't for the darn deer.

The Grackle Moon

Thursday was April's full moon, and I'd say that the warm-season crops are just about all planted. Finally time to relax a little bit after the frantic March and April planting season and watch things grow.

Here is the front garden. The only thing left to do is mulch that last bed, but I'm waiting until the pole beans get a bit bigger and start climbing the poles. Getting the front garden ready took up a lot of my time, so some of the planting was a little late this year.

I put sticks over the ground to keep the neighbor's chickens from digging up the sprouting beans. That seems to be working so far.

Most of the peppers that survived the winter are coming back nicely. I transplanted them to the front garden, but I'm afraid a few of them might not have survived the trip. Or maybe they're just taking their time.

The tomatillos already have lots of fruit on them. The husks grow first, and then the fruit grows into them (right now the fruits are about the size of marbles).  I got the seeds from an online trade, and they were supposed to be purple tomatillos, but they sure don't look like it to me.

In the back, the Tuscan kale is starting to bolt. I think I'll go ahead and let them and save seeds from them. I'm not going to plant anything in that spot anymore. It's too shady. Too close to an oak tree. The Elephant garlic is starting to make scapes, but it looks like the Romanian Red garlic is all dead now.

The potatoes are starting to turn a little yellow, and I can't tell if that means they're starting to finish up and get ready for harvest, or if they haven't been getting enough water.

The arugula seed pods are starting to dry and shatter. I've been going out there and clipping pods off to save seeds, but a lot of seed is ending up on the ground anyway. I guess I'll have lots of arugula volunteers.

I just planted some Calico lima beans around two bean tepees right next to this year's new pepper plants. I put these pepper plants in the back to isolate them from the peppers in the front for seed saving purposes.

I've started harvesting peas, but only enough to eat fresh right off the plant. The peas are turning out to be a disappointment this year. I think it's a combination of planting them late (after we moved here in March), a dry winter, and then the trellis I made for them keeps falling down and damaging the plants. I'll do better next time, when I will plant them in fall (like I usually do) so they can grow through the winter, and I'll be sure to build a much sturdier trellis for them.

The fava beans are starting to make pods. I'm not sure if I'll have enough to eat some, or if I should just let the seeds mature to increase my seed supply and plant more this fall.

The herb garden is doing great. The roses are finally starting to bloom, about a month later than they did last year. I trimmed back the esparanza and now it's coming back.

I planted watermelons, squash, cucumbers, cantelope, and okra seeds in pots to buy me a little more time to decide where I want to plant them, and to let some of my winter crops finish out before I plant them out. Also, some of the seeds were kind of old, so I wanted to make sure they were going to germinate. I also have basil plants in pots I need to plant out soon.

I've been getting lots of compliments from neighbors about my front yard vegetable garden. I'm really glad I did that. I think it might actually be a better spot than the one in the back (less shade, less rocky), and I'm feeling rebellious because a lot of neighborhoods don't allow front yard vegetable gardens at all. It's like I'm stickin' it to the Man!