(As always, clicking on the picture once zooms in, clicking twice zooms in more.)
Onions, garlic, snow peas, roses and herbs. The nasturtiums are big enough to make a good salad now.
Houston, we have MULCH. The red stuff was just for whimsy. I promised Phil not to do it again, but isn't it pretty this way? All of it is cedar, and helps reduce problems of root-knot nematode...
The future vineyard...
During a recent rain (curiously, there was little wind), the giant oak out front lost a huge limb, one so big it was the size of a lot of whole trees. There was a mother mustang grapevine that grew up this limb, her girth at the ground was probably 4 inches across...really old and productive. Only one in ten mustang vines is a female, so I was thrilled last summer to discover this one was. But when the limb fell, Phil had to cut the vine to disentangle and remove the wood and clean up the mess. I feel like I lost a friend.
The good news is that I already five or six cuttings rooted from this vine, knowing it was female, to make into a small vineyard for our own wine. Since the vine was down, though, I got another twenty or thirty cuttings, and here they are, lined up in their little cutting nursery. I hope they'll root this way.
This is the honeysuckle vine I planted last spring. It's doing well and smells heavenly!
Christmas before last, I was given an amaryllis bulb. I don't have much use for plants that can't survive our climate, but I stuck this one in the ground, and promptly forgot about it. Apparently she can survive here, because after a 15 degree freeze, here she is in all her glory!
The brocolli hasn't made heads yet, but it's looking full and leafy. I think next year I'll plant them a little straighter and further apart. Not sure if they're crowded here, but I think they might be. Of course, the beans, peas, parsley, borage, cilantro, and basil might be part of the problem. ;~)
Cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, and some onions in there somewhere...
I put the cowpeas along this series of concrete reinforcement steel...it stands on its edge, and each curve sits opposite the other, with their ends wired together. Pretty sturdy. Guess we'll see. Down at the far end is winter squash. We've got more of the reinforcement steel cut to make tomato cages for the romas, which get huge, but we haven't put them together yet. Soon, soon.
Peas (the dog LOVES these things!) and chard, strawberries. Onions and garlic look good, carrots are a long way off, and the radishes are all green and little root. Too much nitrogen methinks. Next year they get planted away from the peas.
Strange discovery: the dog knows cedar to be "flowerbed". Since he was a pup, he's been trained "get out of the flowerbed!" and knows not to cross into mulch. When we put the cedar down in the garden, of course we started at the corner farthest from the gate. Schultz wouldn't step on it! So his access to the garden shrank with every wheelbarrow full, and now I can leave the gate open and he sits just outside it, knowing that the whole thing is now "flowerbed". He's such a good little guy...
The view from the deck, as I head out to gather a dinner salad! Mmmm...and plenty of thyme, mint, and oregano there along the house.
Thanks for dropping in to see the garden. If you're ever in San Antonio, drop in for real!
Okay, this isn't flowers...it's the Schultz and his foster cat Waylon, bein' all luvy-duvy.
Mexican Elderberry. Apparently I'm going to have to wait until the bush gets bigger (right now it's only 3 or 4 feet tall) before it has enough berries for me AND the birds.
Blackberries. Well, they're blackberries now, right here they were only flowers...or, berries-to-be. Of course they'll ripen while we're on vacation. Hope the neighbor girl likes blackberries. Hmph.
The Red Cascade rose...she's sprawling all over the place, and constantly flowering.
Larkspur, yarrow, pansies, roses (way in the back, probably can't see them) and poppies!
I try not to splurge on plants...or at least buy the ones that provide food, medicine, bird-cover or evergreen landscape value. But this black iris...I just couldn't resist. Too bad you can't smell it on the computer...it's heavenly.
even when breakfast is late.
He brings back morning air in his coat
to give me the day’s forecast.
He saves weed seeds for the
bed-sheets without me having to ask.
He maintains constant vigil against
terrorists, murderers, evil UPS guys
and marauding squirrels.
He is a smile on four legs.