Frustration…


I’ve been too sick to garden since the end of March.

What do I have?

Children.  No–I haven’t given birth recently, but they keep bringing germs home to me.

I have plants potted up and ready to be put in the ground. Ones from seed, ones from cuttings. I even had to put my sweet potato slips in pots!

On my desk are the seeds to plant in June. The April and May seeds have already been refiled and saved for next year.

My garden plans have been highly edited.  There are vegetables that should have been harvested right now that were never planted.  Annuals that are too little to survive the heat blast of the summer and are too late to be planted.  3 weeks ago I was over tonsillitis (or was it the sinus infection?) enough to drag my brawnier half out and point were I wanted things pulled out and tilled under. So the remains of the winter veggies are gone and the empty plots are waiting for me to be able to plant the seeds.

Hopefully this week.



Fabulous Garden Tips by Better Bloggers than I


I try to pass these on as I find them. This one is truly inspired.

We’re gardeners. We Garden. We buy plants. These plants come in…PLASTIC pots.

Bad Human! Don’t take chemicals from strangers! has has written a fabulous post on plant pots and revealed to us all what was in plain sight that we didn’t see in the post You put the lime in the coconut and grow a little seed.



April in the garden!


Spring and Fall are garden seasons in Texas!
April is always so beautiful, with the warm sun, cool breezes, and wildflowers that it’s torture to sit in front of a computer!

Right now all of these are blooming in my garden: azaleas, kholanche, salvias, roses, amaryllis, periwinkles left over from last summer, nasturtiums, lettuce and radishes (maybe I’ll remember to save the seeds!), plumbago, my culinary sage(!) has beautiful lavender flowers.
I love my nasturtiums! They are so cheerful and they were sooo easy from seed!

My Persimmon has tiny little orange flowers. One of my baby Pears (the Akers Home) looks like it’s trying to set fruit. The Satsuma may need some support—it’s very whippy. The little Fig has huge leaves. The neighbor’s Loquat has dropped fruit in our backyard, reminding me that I want to plant a couple of my own. ‘Coppertone’ loquat is as delicious as it is beautiful. The fruit has one large brown pit in it (as opposed to four small black ones), but the fruit is just as sweet as other loquats. And having only one pit means there are less membranes in the middle and more fruit. And it’s so nice to have fruit this time of year—from a tree that has no pests or diseases, has fragrant blooms in the winter, and is so ornamental.

My Magnolia is about to bloom! That’s one of the things I was happy about when we bought the house—I’ve always wanted a magnolia. The Crepe Myrtles have all leafed out.

I have enough lettuce to go on an all-salad diet. My Sugar Snap Peas are done, as are the Radishes. The Danvers Half Long Carrots and Hollow Crown Parsnips are finally almost ready to harvest—a month late for some reason. My Rainbow Chard and Red Mustard are finally recovering from the snail attack. My Cherry Tomatoes (Sungold, Juliet, and Texas Wild) are finally setting fruit.

I promise to get pics up soon–I’m having problems with my software right now.

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A new “R”


I consider myself pretty green, but apparently, I’m outta the green loop.

There are FOUR “R”s for the environment, according to the EPA:
-Reduce
-Reuse
-Recycle
(and the one I didn’t know about)
-Rebuy

Rebuy is described as: ” re-thinking your purchasing habits” to include “biobased, recycled content, and other environmentally preferable aspects.”
I’m doing this, I just didn’t realize it had a name.



The joys of a new garden…


I moved into my new (for me) home in the fall, and now I am confronted with a not so clean slate to work with.

Assets in my new home:
-mature trees and flowering shrubs in the front
-a back patio
-a lovely mature crepe myrtle and ‘Little Gem’ Magnolia in the back
-a Carolina jessamine that is presently blooming its head off.

Problems that came with the house:
-two half-dead ornamental pear trees (strategically placed so that not only did the magnolia have to lean away from them, but also so that no other trees could be planted in that half of the backyard)
-no late-summer thru winter interest at all in the front
-the patio is just a scoootch to small
-a bed full of over-grown yet half defoliated hybrid tea roses that needed to be dodged by the kids whenever they wanted to access the rest of the back yard.

Problems at least partially solved:
-the ornamental pear trees are gone: in their place I managed to squeeze in 5 fruit trees, none of which will interfere with the magnolia (I tried endless combinations on graft paper until I found the optimal solution while still taking into account mature sizes). I’m also planning on using the branches and twigs from the trees to build a play shelter for the kids.
-most of the HT rose were dug up and given to a friend who loves them. I kept two, and have temporarily filled in the rest of the bed with perennials that are ‘butterfly plants’ to amuse the kids while I decide what to do with the bed and how far I’m going to extend the patio.

Yes, I have a problem…
I just referred to ‘perennials’ as ‘temporary’!!!
Of course, they aren’t, I’ll just transplant them.
You know you have a serious gardening addiction if you plant something intending to transplant it later!



Welcome!


Welcome to the new site and the new look!

This blog about gardening in Houston will be updated weekly.



For the Gardener with everything…


Know a gardener with an earthy sense of humor?

I found this hysterical “gift set”: the Pinetree Manure Medley
The description reads: “Casting about for that perfect gift? What’cha guano get the gardener who has everything? Doo consider our exclusive gift set that contains 3 highly effective and concentrated manures.”
Ummm…yeah.

Eco review:
It is definitely recycled. And it is something that’s meant to be used up rather than collecting dust or ending up in a landfill…
But I still worry if the “Desert Bat Guano” and the “Fossilized Seabird Guano” were sustainably harvested.

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