Small successes

After blogging about my epic failures in the last post, I'd pretty much ignored my garden for a week. Then came the weekend where I worked, and then a quick family excursion on Sunday. Monday it rained and rained. So today, Tuesday, I decided to venture out and check on things. I was NOT disappointed this time!

TOMATOES!  I have tomatoes!  

The nursery plants I bought are all in flower or have baby tomatoes.  You just know summer is coming when you see these beauties. 

 I can almost taste that fresh salsa now!

My second batch of seedlings are thriving, 

so far.

And my little "kitchen garden" closest to the house is doing very well.  Onions, garlic, spinach, chard, carrots, lettuce, and kale are really coming to life after the monsoon rains we received lately.

I am very excited over this Cara Cara orange tree I recently planted.  When I bought it from the nursery it was loaded with fruit.  I expected it to drop all of them when I transplanted it, but it has hung on to most of them.  I have about a dozen oranges on my little tree!

My lemon tree is doing very well, too.  There are several dozen lemons growing.  They say it's best to thin your fruit to one or two on a branch but I can't seem to do that.  I'm just so excited over LEMONS!

Seeds that were planted are now growing now that the weather is consistently warmer.  This is a candy roaster squash vine I'm training up some chicken wire.  The squash from these vines are going to make some awfully good "pumpkin" pies this fall.

And even my Chinese red noodle beans have sprouted.  I thought the seeds had rotted in the ground, but here they are!

But my biggest success of all are the first batch of seedlings that had stopped growing earlier in the season.  Seems all they needed was total neglect on my part!  A little more than half of them died, but the ones that survived are now appearing strong with new sets of leaves.

I'm very happy with these small successes in the garden, I'm hoping they continue.  Now I'm off to try to accomplish a BIG success in the garden.....getting these rotten boys to help me pull weeds!

EPIC FAIL!

I should be well into a lush, green growing garden right now but 

NOOOOOOOO! 

I am struggling to grow anything in my garden. 

It seems as if Mother Nature hates me.

It all started with these:

These are the tomato, eggplant, pepper, and herbs that I started from seed over nine weeks ago!  They should have already been hardened off and transplanted to the garden.  I have repeated the exact same process year after year but this year something is out of whack.  They either died or stopped growing all together...all of them!  

I would have blamed it on a poor batch of soil but then this happened:

That is a dead pepper plant!  

I'll admit it.  I caved and bought some pepper plants from the nursery because I was so discouraged with the failure of my seedlings.  I transplanted them into my raised beds and then noticed something (likely snails) had been munching on the leaves.  I dusted them with some food grade diatomaceous earth and about three days later they were dead.

  

Strike two against me!

I could have even bounced back from that until I saw this:

Those are some seriously jacked up bean plants.

I had to replant the whole lot of them due to a late freeze and then I dusted them with the DE because the snails seemed to love them too.  Most of them died and the few that are left are looking pretty sad.

I feel my green thumb turning brown by the minute.

So like any good gardener, I went to the nursery and bought myself a garden!

My favorite nursery on earth, Enchanted Forrest, had plenty of heirloom tomatoes.  So I brought some home and planted them up in some homemade earth boxes (check out YouTube!  LOTS of ways to make these and most of them under ten bucks!)

I really had my heart set on some of the heirlooms I started from seed, so I started all over again and planted more seeds.  Thankfully, we have a really long growing season here in Texas.  By the time my purchased plants are spent, these from seed should be producing.

Now barring any natural disasters or plagues (I'm not holding my breath!), I should be harvesting tomatoes well into October. 

The only thing I seem to be doing right is flowers.

I've never had much success as a flower gardener, but I've had some beautiful results so far this year. They make me happy while enduring my vegetable failures.

Gardening is never boring, that's for sure.

Every season is a new adventure! 

Boston

"Deeply grieved by news of the loss of life and grave injuries caused by the act of violence perpetrated last evening in Boston, His Holiness Pope Francis wishes me to assure you of his sympathy and closeness in prayer. In the aftermath of this senseless tragedy, His Holiness invokes God’s peace upon the dead, his consolation upon the suffering and his strength upon all those engaged in the continuing work of relief and response. At this time of mourning the Holy Father prays that all Bostonians will be united in a resolve not to be overcome by evil, but to combat evil with good (cf. Rom 12:21), working together to build an ever more just, free and secure society for generations yet to come." 
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone Secretary of State

Focusing today on combating evil with good 

by praying and performing random acts of kindness.

Our prayers are with you, Boston.

Growing ginger

Now I think I've already grown two of the cutest "gingers" known to man (i.e. Danny and Mary Grace!) but this post is strictly about the ginger plant.  Thanks to several pins on Pinterest, I've seen that growing your own ginger is very easy to do!

I started by taking the freshest ginger root I could find at the store and soaked it in warm water for about two hours.  Most of the Pinterest posts skip this step, but it's a root, a dried root, and a good soaking is a really good idea in my opinion.

I broke the root into two pieces and planted them in two different beds in the garden.  The bed in the upper picture remains moist, is partially shaded, cool, and heavily mulched.  The bed in the lower picture has super rich soil that is well drained and gets lots of hot afternoon sun.  We'll see which environment the ginger prefers!

I am very excited to grow our own ginger.  It has such wonderful health benefits and tastes so good!  If I'm lucky enough, I may be posting soon on making our own ginger beer...YUM!

It's not spring time in Texas until...

...you plop your baby down in a patch of bluebonnets 

and take her picture!

It's a Texas tradition!

A gardening experiment

...because I'm a big nerd and have nothing better to do!

I subscribe to The Farmer's Almanac on Twitter and they recently had an article on gardening by the moon phases. I thought it was intriguing and since we have a full moon today I thought I'd perform a little garden experiment of my own.

By their predictions, today and tomorrow are good for planting root crops.  I already have some garlic and onions planted and they have begun to sprout nicely.  Today I went in between my rows and planted a second time to see if this "full moon" business has any merit. 

I might go ahead and plant an extra row or two of radishes and carrots, too (like I need an excuse to plant more stuff, right?).  I've already planted my beans, okra, and squash and because  listened to the local garden extension office instead of The Farmer's Almanac, we've had a freeze the last two nights and I'm going to have to replant about half my beans!  Luckily, The Almanac has the dates listed as to when to plant what!

So we'll see if The Almanac is right about gardening by the phases of the moon, and even if it isn't, it makes gardening a little more fun and adventurous....

and gives my family one more reason to question my mental health!

Garden Tour

So I spent last week working on my gardens. It was gorgeous weather and the neighborhood kids were out for spring break. Everyone was busy enjoying the outdoors and I got quite a bit accomplished, but with gardening it seems there is always another project in the works.

These are my main garden boxes.  The front three are ready for planting and have a nice four inch layer of hay on top.  Seeds will go in today if the rain holds off for a bit.  The back three are in sad shape.  Ever since my niece had a load of free wood chips delivered to her house, and I witnessed their Back to Eden gardening method, I have been on a mission to get free wood chips for my garden.  You'd think in the country that wouldn't be a problem, but it is!

I think Doug found a local tree trimmer that will give us chips for free.  We'll find out for sure on Thursday.  Keep your fingers crossed!  If this comes through, I have plans for two more garden boxes and two more beds near our garage (see what I mean about more projects!).

Below is my medicinal herb garden.  It fared very well during our mild winter this year.  I made sure that what could go to seed did go to seed, like basil and dill, and everything else just got cut back.  This bed will get a good mulching with the wood chips and some new additions like yarrow, horehound, and ecchinacea.  

.

This little garden is my memory garden.  Four rose bushes stand for my four angels in Heaven.  There are also daylilies, amaryllis, gladiola, and lavender ~ all the flowering plants I love.  It will get a good layer of wood chips as well, I have a heck of a time with weeds in this little garden.

These four boxes are my kitchen garden.  I have onions, garlic, carrots, and herbs planted here.  The bed near the house have hydrangea that is just now coming back to life after the winter.  I hope to propagate some more and fill in this bed completely. Hydrangea is simply my most favorite flower!  I mulched with hay here.  Hay is super cheap and I have found it does a great job of preventing weeds and retaining moisture in this bed.

The fruit trees are budding and blooming! 

 My lemon tree is loaded with blooms and bees and the smell is amazing!  

The elderberry bushes that I planted on Valentine's Day are growing like crazy.  I'm very hopeful we will have some berries for syrup this summer!  Our other fruiting trees, pear, fig, orange, and apple are also coming out with new growth and lots of buds.

I finally got the bed in front of the house weeded and mulched with hay.  I have some flower seedlings that will go here in a few weeks to fill it in.  I call this bed my hummingbird garden, all the plants are loved by my little hummers:  lantana, plumeria, hibiscus, and canna.  If you don't find the hummingbirds fighting over the feeders, you'll find them here!

This is my sad front porch.  There are two long beds on either side of the walk way that didn't grow much.  I spent a year amending the soil with compost and hay and this year it will be growing food instead of ornamental flowers.  Four tomatillo plants and trellises of candy roaster squash will line the walls.  

We'll see how it goes, and no matter how it turns out, this area will be GREEN for sure!

So that's the tour of our little part of the earth.  I have some other projects in the works to establish permaculture on the property.  It's a slow process, it's hard and dirty work, and I'm OK with that!

Hopefully I'll be able to post on Thursday about the delivery of our free wood chips!

Sunflowers

I LOVE sunflowers! 

Every year since we moved here I've bought a few simple seed packets from Walmart and John Paul and Daniel have had fun planting them and watching them grow.  After the growing season, we put the seed heads out for the birds to enjoy.  It's always amazing how that tiny seed can produce such a huge plant and then go on to produce so many more seeds!

Danny in 2009 by his sunflower garden

This year I bought six different varieties of heirloom sunflower seeds from my favorite company, Baker Creek Seed Co.:

                                                 ARIKARA

HENRY WILDE

HOPI BLACK DYE

ITALIAN WHITE

TEDDY BEAR

TITAN

I have some fun projects in mind, thanks to Pinterest!  And you can bet we won't be letting the birds have ALL the seeds, I want to save some to propagate again next year!

Weekending

The weather this weekend was absolutely gorgeous!  We spent Sunday outside soaking up sunshine and tending to a few chores.  I'm trying to get my seedlings out in the sun every day to keep them from becoming too leggy.  So far, so good!  Below is my first venture into growing flowers from seed.  "Love in a Mist" was a free seed packet received from Baker Creek Seed Co. when I placed my order this year.  I also have some purple coneflower and floxglove sprouting.

I finally got someone to sand our sad and abused kitchen table!  Years of meals, schoolwork, art projects, etc...have left it pretty beaten up.  Kyle took it outside and sanded it down for me.  

It looks almost new again!

He also built some benches for our fire pit from pallets and salvaged wood.  The pallets and scrap wood were FREE (picked up from around town), we just paid for the screws.  

What a deal!

It wasn't long before the boys were tossing around the footballs and baseballs.  Mary Grace LOVES the outdoors and thinks she can do anything her brothers are doing.  

Daddy had to share his football with her...

And then she made off with Kyle's football, too!  

Yes, the game came to a halt when the little princess demanded BOTH footballs to carry around.  

Not throw, or kick, or share... just carry.

And the funniest thing is is that the boys let her!  

Had it been a younger brother that took off with the balls, you can guarantee an immediate pounding would have occurred to get them back. But they just giggled, watching her prance around.

Yes, I think she is the princess of the castle ~

 and we are her humble minions!