The promised progress report pics...

Everything in our garden is grown organically, no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, etc.

Clicking on pictures will enlarge them, clicking again will make them huge! :~)

Using irrigation from the house's gutter downspouts, this is the "water garden" with cannas, iris, seagrass, and a sloooowwwly growing jasmine vine in the middle.


A herb bed off the deck along the north side of the house...lemon balm, comfrey, several mints, thyme, oregano, mexican heather, southernwood fern, purple something (?) sorrel, salad burnett, turk's cap, plumbago, a nandina and a Japanese yaupon (up close.) This summer I won't be able to see the ground because it will all fill in.

This is the new bed outside the door of the recently finished Jan Cave...the main stuff is nandina, butterfly bush, dianthus, and the arborvitae, w/ thyme and oregano tucked in here & there, and four asparagus crowns behind it all, ...the nursery pots contain what will be Texas Mountain Laurel from seed. Also a bay laurel and a Red Cascade rose from a layered cutting.

Rosemary, Knockout yellow rose (only one w/ fragrance that I've found) cilantro, sage, more rosemary, lavender, thyme, oregano, chives, garlic, silver lace vine (not awake yet) cannas, lemon balm, cross vine, rue, winter savory, frog-fruit (I regret planting it--invasive!) and more cannas. The red, off in the background, is Indian Paintbrush, a native Tx wildflower.

My Roma Tomato Ghetto Planter (experimental, but so far, they're half a foot taller than the ones in the veggie garden...)

Blackberries, bottle gourds, and ghetto tomatoes. Indian paintbrush and native purple phlox in the background...

Honeysuckle, artemisia, Lady Banks rose, oxeye daisy, tarragon, mexican mint marigold, iris, creeping oregano, bouncing bet, forsythia, and some other stuff I can't remember the name of right now. I didn't plant the bluebonnets, but I plan on saving the seed!

Along the side/front of the house; grapes, pansies, yarrow, fennel, poppies, hollyhocks, russian sage, purple coneflower, thyme, larkspur, daylilies, lantana, knockout and red cascade roses, and waaaay the end, a redbud tree w/ dusty miller, lemongrass, false indigo, nasturtiums, and...other stuff. This beds' got a while to grow, but it's making progress!

Mix of herbs, roses, flowering perennials, and veggies.

The front beds (listed above) w/ the Anna apple tree and Schultz in the foreground.

Veggie beds, southwest side...peas, green beans, basil, borage, parsley, broccoli, and cilantro.

Veggie beds, southeast side, w/ lettuce, spinach, herbs, radishes, carrots, peas, and nasturtiums. More bluebonnets to the left in the neighbor's yard. Our HOA lets us mow around them until their season is over.

Veggies again...peas, strawberries, swiss chard, onions, garlic, etc. I still have to finish edging the beds w/ timbers, and then comes lots of mulch.

The new asparagus beds, w/ the Mex. bird of paradise nursery sprouting in pots. (And a pot full of chickweed...yes, I grow it on purpose. Good for you!) Two years before we can harvest any asparagus!

The garden gate my honey built last year.

The new fruit trees we put in this year are doing fine--two peaches, two plums, two apples, a fig, a Mexican elderberry, and quite a few rooted cuttings of the native Mustang grape. The chasteberry tree is thriving (and I still haven't processed last year's berries) and Phil's pet Burr Oak (we named it Raymond) is leafing out nicely. Since we only moved into this place a year ago February, (and there was NOTHING growing that didn't plant itself here) we've come a long way. I love taking all these pictures so that in five years we can look back and see how far it's come.

But right now, it's a lovely San Antonio Spring, promising to be a very productive San Antonio Summer!