With limited space and to prepare for the winter garden, I pulled out the pepper plants. Will give two bags away and freeze one bag to use in soups and beans. Time to plant broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, kale, lettuce and spinach. Yum!
Mistflower attracting butterflies. Mexican oregano attracts hummingbirds. Not sure what the Thryallis feeds. It blooms beautifully and all spring and summer, but never see a bee, butterfly or any bug on it… Tiny garlic and onion chives are blooming.
Little snake hiding in my pots. Still getting used to this aspect of gardening. Let it live. =)
Little frog in the bucket we use to catch water that drips from the faucet. Hope he is not dinner for the snake!
I think this is the best part of gardening without pesticides. Love seeing salamanders, lizards, toads, frogs, birds, and even snakes. But it is a circle of life. When we have tons of tadpoles, something comes along and eats them at night. Poor little fellers.
Lots of rain this year makes for big plants. I’ve been trimming all year so that we can continue to use our sidewalk. Many plants did not die back like this overgrown Thyrallis! You can barely see the house. Love the rain though…
The birds get most of them and they make quite a mess, but it is beautiful sight.
Anole stands watch over the frog pond and scoops up the dragonflies as they come out of the water.
Whats blooming? Red creeping rose, star jasmine, copper canyon daisy, and mealy blue sage. Note: mealy blue sage grows easily from seed and is very tolerant of alkaline soils.
Two lizards soaking up some sun. And an anole on the hunt.
First loquat fruit from our tree planted two years ago. Bees loved the flowers, but we only got a few fruit. Not sure why…birds, squirrels, lack of pollination? Will need to look into this for next year. The fruit was delicious and reminds me of my childhood…
I used to work with a guy who made a delicious Dewberry pie. He would pick them wild from some spot where he would go fishing. I wish I had gotten that recipe!
Flowers in April and Fruit in May. The birds love it too!
…and make room for spring veggies. We planted our carrots in whiskey barrels this time. Success! We will give away a lot to friends and family. I think we should have picked these in February though. Many of them were quite large, but some were really small. Possibly caused by a large ant pile I did not notice in one of the barrels. Not sure what happened. Always learning…
So we got tired of eating broccoli and stopped picking it after a while. The result was a blessing. All through the month of February and part of March, our broccoli bloomed and was covered in bees and butterflies. I wish I could post a video so you could see all of the bees and butterflies, but here is a picture.
The sad part was having to pull it out in order to prepare for our spring garden. It was still covered in blooms when we pulled it. Next year, we will plant some where we can leave it in longer.
Not much is blooming in December. It is important to provide pollen year round. I think I learned about this on an episode of Central Texas Gardener. I hope to add to my list of plants in the coming years. Here is what is blooming in my garden this month:
So I was reading that it is just as important to feed and water birds in the winter as it is in the spring and summer. So, we took an old fire pit and turned it into a bird bath. I think they like it.
Growing watermelon takes a lot of space. Not sure if I will do this again, but it was really neat growing them. I recommend Crimson Sweet because they are small and I think that means they ripen faster and the big melons. This variety was recommended by the County Agricultural Extension service, so I gave it a try. Success. (It helped that this was a rainy year)
