Everything is asleep, but starting to wake up. One of my favorite times of the year. The anticipation of everything getting ready to spring out of the ground. So many factors play a part in what the garden will look like. Not only the weather this spring and summer, but the weather conditions of last winter can affect your garden.
Three vultures hanging out at our house.
Best day ever! Harvested first lime ever. Limes are cheap, so never grew a lime tree. But I got garden fever and bought a lime tree on sale. Well, let’s just say it is a good feeling to harvest your own limes.
Now for the bad news. This plant will likely not survive in the ground. So every time it got cold, we had to lug this tree into the garage. Sunny? lug back out. Cold? in! Warm? out! Not sure if it is worth it. You only get one back. ha.
Parsley – turns out I do not use a lot of parsley. Figs in the hugel are forming. Texas Mulberry is a workhorse and well adapted to our area.
Cascade rose is blowing up.
Happy Fall. So blessed. I feel blessed that I was able to have one harvest of broccoli before the freeze killed it. You see, it was so warm this year that when the first freeze showed up, it killed the broccoli. It stunted it really bad at least. Green Magic broccoli. Good stuff. It probably would have made it if I had covered it. The thing is…I have never covered broccoli before. It usually makes it through freezing weather just fine. But from what I have heard/read/watched, the reason it got hurt so bad by the freeze is because it did not have time to harden off. Normally the weather gets cold in dribs and drabs so that the plant hardens off before a big freeze. It was 80 degrees the same week as the first freeze. No time to “harden off”. Nutty weather!
Yum, so we did get one harvest before the first freeze. Now for the cold, hard, truth about pesticide free gardening…Worms! They don’t hurt you even if you eat them. But, if you soak your broccoli in salt water, the worms will detach and float away from the broccoli. Sorry little fellas.
…from inside the house or outside.
It has been such a mild summer and mild winter.
We have hawks. We feed birds and our habitat attracts bunnies and lizards. Then hawks came. I guess it is the circle of life. Today, I walked up on these doves. They look like they are looking out for each other. 3 birds; one looking left, one looking right. Lucky one in the middle.
This year I did a second planting of Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes in the heat of summer. I’m so glad I did. Cherry tomatoes in October is wonderful. I put them in a pot so I can roll them inside if we get an early freeze.
Also planted Green Magic broccoli, Crawford lettuce and cilantro from seed. It is tiny but will grow fast.
Looks like Meyer Lemon and Mexican Lime tree made it through the winter freeze. It is blooming and producing fruit this month. Cannot wait!
I lost my moringa tree in the winter storm, so I decided to try to grow one again from seed. It grew all year. I don’t find it very tasty yet, so mostly just pick some leaves when I walk by and munch on it raw.
To my surprise, in August of the same year, the tree flowered! But it gets better, then it started forming these long beans. They are seed pods. I did some research and found that they are edible. Edible when they look like long beans. I tried one or two and it was pretty peppery. I plan to try to let the pods mature and see if they will be viable seeds next year.
Fast forward to November. Pods are looking close to ready tp pick. Need to do more research…
I rarely bring flowers inside. I generally enjoy them outside in their natural habitat. When a bloom starts to fade outside, it does not leave a mess off pollen and leaves on your table. But for some reason today, I decided to clip some and bring them in. I’m glad I did. Smelled so good. Made me smile.
My husband brought home these seeds. Seeds to a native Passionflower vine. Planted them and they sprouted in two days. Cant wait to see this growing on our fence.
The first picture is of the fruit. It was full of seeds. I broke one of them open and it produced about 30 seedlings. I recommend harvesting them at this stage. Almost 100% germination rate. Funny note, he left one fruit in his pants pocket and I washed it and dried it. Seeds from that fruit also sprouted!
The two pictures on the right are of the vine that produced the fruit/seed. This was a fence somewhere in San Antonio. Isn’t it lovely? I cannot wait to see it grow on our fence one day.
Lots of Thai peppers; Bunnies nibbling on melons that fell on ground; Lots of rain
It should have a yellow spot where it comes in contact with the soil. And this curly cue should turn brown. I’ll post an updated pic when it turns brown.
Still lots of rain and mild temps. This is incredible.
Honey Jar Jujube and Black Sea Jujube – They both flowered this year, in May and July respectively. No fruit this year though. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. That’s the way it goes.
Walking down the sidewalk, I saw a small light green spot on our Burmese Okra plant. As I got closer…
…and temps have been mild. I cannot remember the last time we had weather like this.
Veggies in June
