Texas Hill Country Garden

frog, bees, tree frog, Basset Hound, baby cardinals, and tiny tiny anole. Such an amazing world full of beauty and wonder!

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Someone pruned my La Feliciana peach tree for me this year. Note, if you do not prune enough, your peaches will be very small. You know how the part of the peach closest to the pit, kind of tastes like pit. Well, that was the whole peach because they were so tiny….The drought did not help either. But that’s ok. There’s always next year. lol. You live and you learn.

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and small due to lack of rain…

A friend gave this to me 3 years ago. This is the first year it bloomed. I have never grown tropicals before. There is a learning curve. Much different than natives.

First pic is from March and last one is July.

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With the drought, we stopped watering all plants once we ran out of rainwater. But we still put out water for the wildlife. It was so nice to see on Next Door that we had neighbors who were doing the same. I love nature.

Aside from deer, here are a few interesting visitors…

A hawk!

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A painted bunting! I saw one at our bird feeder about 10 years ago, and never since. You have to look closely to see him.

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Woodpecker, Squirrel and a cardinal

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Before and after pics. We were worried it would be an eyesore from the front. I don’t think it is.

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Dear Lord, please send us some restorative rain. In Jesus name, Amen.

I did not plant enough okra this year…or I have not kept up with picking them before they get hard and woody. But we eat what we pick…okra and bean sprouts yum

Waving the white flag. I cannot justify watering plants when we have gone this long without rain. Like I said in a previous post, we have been watering following the motto of “survive not thrive”, but it still feels like too much. I’ve seen on Next door that there are people in my neighborhood whose wells are dry. Praying for rain.

Her is a last look at things as we go into stage 3 like restrictions, which is no watering at all.

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More flowers and veggies. These veggies are going to get pulled early. Peppers, Armenian Cucumbers, and marigold can take the heat. Eggplant doing good too.

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Flowers: Zinnias and fireworks gomphrena can take the heat but need too much water. Coneflowers are suffering unless they get some water.

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Here are some trees that I wanted to plant this spring: plum, jujubes, Asian pear and fig. I’m glad I did not get around to it, because they surely would have died. I read that if you hill them in, they will not need much water. Hope so.

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One good thing has come from this. I have a better feel for what plants can handle real drought. I plant to make some changes over time so that our garden is more drought tolerant.

Another good thing is that we are now even more committed to getting/using more rain catching.