Backyard update...

What my garden looks like as of this post.

A lot has changed in the backyard from it's mostly dirt and ligustrum status to the idea of a garden of low maintenance natives to raised beds to now.

First year in the house, figuring out the best paths in the backyard.

Fall 2009 was a great time in my garden. Spring while I was very pregnant everything went to flower and I had some really pretty crimson clover. Some native plants didn't make it through the summer, others flourished, and some I finally figured out were actually short-lived perennials. A lot managed to live through 2011 and I moved the raised beds a couple of times. Quite a few things died since I had a baby whose care took most of my time. I killed the roses that were passed on to me and then one I bought. I also killed the blackberries plants I tried to plant as well as the Fig tree. I also changed a lot that year or maybe just rediscovered myself.

Late Fall 2012, not much is growing  because I didn't water enough. My kid is building her own mini-garden

 My daughter is now almost a preschooler. Spring 2013 has been really successful in my garden. I'm trying to grow stuff that I had failed at up to now. I was inspired because I had volunteer spaghetti and butternut squash summer 2012. We really enjoyed the 6 small small spaghetti squash and the one butternut squash we ate before the squash vine borers destroyed the plants. My little one loved the winter squash. The only other crop that did well was the okra. The fall there was no rain and I just couldn't manage to water though I planted a lot. Not much of it came up. In the early spring, I planted a fig tree, a pineapple guava, a white turks cap bush and a fuyu persimmon. Two of which were gifts. Having these fruit trees and bushes has inspired me to water on a regular basis and we have gotten more rain this spring.

Late Winter/Early Spring 2013

Late Winter/Early Spring 2013

Salad Greens and Chiogga Beets from my Garden

A typical weekly bowl of Braising Greens.

 This is the best year yet for my backyard and garden and quite a few of the seeds I planted in the fall just waited 'till spring. I have managed to have two dishes of greens and one large salad every week which included beets for several weeks now and there is more to come from the garden. This year I got brave and am trying tomatillos, tomatoes, green peppers, basil, and cucumbers. Only the cucumbers are not doing well, so far though we did get to eat one pickling cucumber which was super tasty.  I have many random plants because my kid has to have seeds and plants anytime she goes to the plant nursery with me and as long as it is under a certain amount I can't resist buying them for her with the hopes she will be interested in the garden as well. We have volunteer summer squash, a zucchini type. I don't know how we ended up with it, but already have eaten more zucchini from it than all the years I've tried planting summer squash and I am seeing several small fruits that will mature in the next few weeks.  I also have two other volunteer melons or squash. No clue which since they are not fruiting yet. I am seeing a greater variety of insects, birds, and today a mouse. Mostly we have squirrels, including one living in our sycamore tree in the front yard which is going to eventually require us to cut it down. I suspect it is not only the squirrels digging in my garden, but mice. I know a lot of these new animals and bugs are due to the pecan crop we got in the fall which we harvested the majority of in October and some more in November and a few in December.  We still have some pecans that I am making pesto with this weekend. We also gave away several bags. Not sure I will be doing that this fall if we get another crop because I have this crazy idea that I want to be able to someday produce 75 to 80% of our food. I've read it is possible though not sure in Austin, Texas if it is...

I rechecked the same gardening books I liked from previous years and some new ones. Each time I learn something completely new like certain squash and melons can cross pollinate so watch were you plant them and if you want pure varieties only plant one variety each year.

I have finally apparently eradicated the poison oak because the bindweed, peppervine, carolina snailseed, hackberry and hedge parsley have completely taken over it's spot. Where the ligustrum used to be along the fence and then there was just emptiness has been taken over by volunteer pomegranate including a white/pale yellow variety. Looking forward to seeing if any of them are fruiting pomegranate or they are just ornamental. I suspect the pale yellow is an ornamental.

I have some new volunteer ornamental flowering plants (I think some people consider them weeds) and some of the wildflowers that I have planted for 4 yrs straight are finally coming up. Of course at this point I only know what a few of them are like the spiderwort, the standing cypress, and the wild chives. But that is one of the things I love about gardening is researching my garden mysteries. I just figured out that the plant that came up with the volunteer sunflowers last summer is amaranth and it is edible. I found one growing today and figured it out.

I'm keeping it this year because I think I may add in backyard chickens or rabbits and it will be a good source of grain one day. I also planted a good eating variety of amaranth though I have no clue since though I have had amaranth flour, I've never eaten amaranth leaves which are suppose to be like spinach. Well, I did taste a raw one today and it just tasted vaguely green grassy rather than like spinach. Next challenge is to cook some amaranth greens. I will be starting with the wild ones.

I love growing food. There is just something magical about it and it is tastier for many reason. I am really excited about growing varieties not found at stores because they don't keep well fresh. When I first started this adventure I stuck to things I knew I liked to eat and as time goes on I'm learning to like new things that I thought I didn't like beets because chiogga beets are not only pretty in my salads but so much tastier than the store variety.

I read about Ring Gardens in Dryland gardening and had to try it.

I can't resist  trying experimenting with new garden methods, in the beginning I thought I thought I would only be doing raised beds, but this year I've started an in ground bed, my own version of a hugulkultur bed, a tomato ring, and I trenched our compost in a style of double dug intensive bed and planted stuff over it. I'm also going to try to make a bean pole tent for my kid to play in. You can see the frame of it made out of bamboo stakes sourced from down the street.

In the last year, I've dismantled a lot of my old experiments which were not successful. The new ones are much more successful already. I'm also more accepting that I just like to experiment and even though I read a lot regarding certain garden theories just like in my cooking, art, and sewing I have a hard time following directions I just need to follow my bliss which will hopefully lead to lots of food to eat one day, regardless I will be happy digging in my garden.

Making Peace with What is Gardening Style

My fabulous playgroup has started a gardening round robin. I got to be first. They all came over with their 3 to 11 month olds, we set up a little water playground for the kiddos, and then we weeded both my 4x8 raised bed, and my 4x4 raised bed. With that many people it only took an hour and half which was good because that was about the time all the kiddos needed to go home. It was a lot of fun. We are set to go to someone else's house next.

I just planted a bunch of seeds today. Most of which was from my playgroup. Beans, melons, chard, spinach, basil, zuchini, summer squash, cucumbers, and okra. I didn't bother labeling them because I didn't have the time, but did make sure to have a general idea of what I planted where. Only veggies my kiddo and I can eat. I've retired the ollas for now since I just wasn't up to digging holes to bury them again since I removed them so we could weed and break up the dirt and will try my hand at watering. Luckily it is going to rain tomorrow so I don't have to water yet.

The Manperson has been mowing the weed grass (not sure what kind of grass or grasses it is but it grows over everything) and once mowed it doesn't look so bad for a weed. The ligustrum and crepe myrtle that I thought we had destroyed all grew back while I wasn't able to garden. Happily, many of my texas native plants are also growing back among the johnson grass. They are holding their own. I don't have the time to garden like I want to, so I've decided to make peace with those things that I really just don't have the time to work on. I'm going to keep the pathways clear and try not to let the crepe myrtle and ligustrum get really tall again or overtake the plants I like, but beyond that C'est La Vie.

The poison oak has also grown back, but at least it is keeping to its area. I'm contemplating just planting stuff to block off that part of the yard. I'm thinking blackberries which if I remember correctly have thorns.

My backyard looks okay. It isn't quite what I was hoping for, but if I didn't know what some of the plants were, I would be pretty happy. I'm also storing my friends container garden which adds a unique element. I plan on posting pictures soon of the yard now.

Inspired...

So everything is a bit overgrown... I hoping to eventually have enough energy to take the weedwacker to some of the icky grass in the back yard.

My friend 'E' sent me pictures of her garden vegetables from last year and this morning all I could think of is I want to plant tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash. So this afternoon after my daily porcelain god worship session, I started pulling up plants that have gone beyond the flowering stage to ready my raised beds for new plantings. I think it would be super cool to have fresh tomatoes and cucumbers available from my own garden while I'm home with my kiddo this summer. I also did a little weeding...

This is before I started pulling stuff that is no longer edible up. Well, it could be edible just not willing to try it...

I miss gardening. It was so nice to work in the yard today even though I couldn't do it for too long. There is just something to the kind of satisfaction one gets from physical work that you get instant results from. I wanted to be ruthless and pull up everything in the raised beds, but there are still quite a few edible vegetables even though I still can't handle hardy greens. I think I even have a beet finally growing. I planted a few that never came up. My brussel sprouts are finally growing too.

After some work this morning my raised bed look much neater, but they still need a lot of work before I can purchase seeds and transplants...

Broccoli is the Best!

Though I can't eat broccoli much right now 'cause the kiddo doesn't seem to like it, it is serving a great purpose feeding the bees through the winter. They seem to love it. Both of the broccoli's that are in flower are swarming with bees and not just the little bees that I saw last full, but big bees unafraid of the camera. 

I've never seen fully flowered broccoli before and it is quite pretty, both close-up and at a distance. For all my neglect, my 4x8 bed is flourishing. The brussel sprouts are finally coming up it looks like I have two plants from the seeds I planted. I have some new broccoli that I seeded last September/October that is finally making an appearance. All this and I didn't bother to cover it during any of our freezes. A couple of our Austin friends who also have gardens covered their veggies during the freeze and they still aren't doing all the well. Must be a location issue. Though I'm not getting to eat anything from my garden 'cause my pregnant tummy can't handle it, I'm getting a great sense of accomplishment when I see how pretty my veggie garden is...

A big mess...

We had our first freeze a few weeks ago. Manperson and I heard these really loud sounds outside our bedroom window and thought there is no way they are playing baseball this early on a Saturday morning. We were correct. Our pecan tree had a massive small limb and leaf drop.  The back patio was covered as was anything within 5 to 10 feet with several inches of it. Starting to dislike the pecan tree even more. I know it serves a purpose in keeping the house cool in the summer, but this is the second major mess it is has created. The last time it was a pecan drop all over the patio and the pecans were too early and unhappy enough that is was just another big mess with no reward. Not that I eat pecans much anyway. I know that a lot of the early, sad pecan drop was the stress the tree has been under because of the long-standing drought conditions. But I don't care, the tree is now on my list of too much work. I don't think I will be planting any nut trees anytime soon and if I do they will be of the dwarf variety.

I also regret not pulling out all the tomato plants before it froze. I was just too taken with the tiny green tomatoes and the pretty yellow flowers. They all melted in the freeze which was exactly why I didn't bother planting any and created and particular ickyness in my raised beds. In the 4x4 bed, the sugar snap peas, nasturtium, swiss chard all didn't make it, on the other hand who knew salad greens were so frost hardy. I'm planning on my vacation from work to totally redo the 4x4 bed and start some new salad greens. Apparently, one can plant them and spinach all through the winter months. I haven't even been watering my ollas. The last time was just before it froze to make sure they didn't break. In the 4x8 bed, the volunteer tomato plants were yet again a pain, along with it's closeness to the pecan tree. I don't know how much time I will need to spend removing leaves from my veggies.  The other unexpected painful plant was the dill, it didn't exactly melt, just keeled over, but greenly still I think I will keep it confined next time. I realized finally that the mystery plant that I have been trying to figure out in the middle of my 4x8 raised bed is not something I planted. On the good front, the cabbage lopers liked it enough to leave some of my other plants alone. On the bad front, they kept other stuff I planted from growing. I'm pulling them all up when I clean up the 4x8 bed. I got one more green harvest out the 4x8 bed with some really tasty rapini. The cauliflower bud does not look happy after the freeze, I think any cauliflower I plant again will either need to be done early or protected from freezes. The hardy greens i.e. kale, collards and mustards as well as the tsoi tsoi, rapini and what is left of the broccoli all made it through just fine. Yay, brassicas, mostly hardy. I have some small broccoli shoots that are growing and hopefully will make it through subsequent freezes. 

I will write more postmortem gardening sum-up  during the winter break including all the new plants I planted in early november, pictures, and future plans.

Updates...

Check out how tall one kind of sugar/snow pea has grown and it is even larger since I took this picture. I'm probably going to totally redo this raised bed for the next growing season since except for the swiss chard and salad greens it mostly produced stuff that I wasn't interested in eating or things that I didn't plant, but are turning out to be plants that I've planned for next summer and new raised beds that I'm going to convince manperson to build. Manperson has his own growing project though. He plans on growing cigar plants and making his own cigars (ambitious, indeed).

Here is a close-up of one of my sugar snap pea plants that is producing what looks and tastes more like snow peas. I really need to read up on these plants since I have more seeds waiting to planting for the next growing season and no idea what went wrong...

I still have no idea what is in the center of this raised bed except that it is painful to touch and the cabbage lopers and snails love it enough to mostly leave my other vegetables except the cauliflower alone. The cauliflower is coming back though after having been mostly decimated and I hope to have a picture of my pretty white cauliflower bud soon.

The big single broccoli plant here seen right after a rain, seems to be one that may not develop side shoots. I heard that I could eat the rest of the plant including the leaves. I'm going to give it two weeks to see if some side shoots develop then try to eat broccoli leaves.

The two broccoli plants that are together promise more broccoli later, there are already side shoots developing...

Here is the most snow peas/sugar snap peas, I've been able to harvest at one time. They are laying mostly on mustard greens and a few swiss chard (gotta plant more swiss chard next time, my 1 plant has been really prolific).

Here are the broccoli finally ready to be cooked and eaten on a bed of mostly collards with a few kale leaves mixed in and 1 mustard green leaf.

A few posts ago, I put a yellow mystery flower on my blog. The "Manperson's" friend D said the plant was a tomato plant, but I didn't plant any tomato plants. I went through all my seeds hoping one of them would explain these plants that were overtaking my raised beds and also popping up in other places in my backyard. I had 12-13 of them just in the raised beds. I recently pulled out two so that my lettuces and spinach had a little more room. I also pulled up some nasturtium which never flowered which was taking room from plants I'm actually willing to eat. It turns out that D was right. I have tomato plants. I didn't plant them so they were either in the soil or birds brought them, who knows. I now have a few with little green tomatoes. It will interesting to see what happens since we are hitting cold season. I wanted to plant tomato plants, but this is not tomato season in Austin according to my planting guides...

Stats so far...

6 salad green meals (3 each for the man and I), and 1 big meal with in-laws

7 baskets of kale, collards, mustard green, red swiss chard, and some random other brassica type greens that I'm not sure of type/name mix

Maybe 2 handfuls of snow peas & sugar snap peas

3 broccoli heads and more on the way

Some of my backyard experiments have failed. I stuck foil around one of my leaf/tree limb compost areas. It made the ligustrum that I thought was dead grow back fairly vigorously, arg! At least the other ligustrum stumps haven't vigorously sprouted again. All in all, I'm super happy with my backyard right now. I used to hate going back there and now I'm sad when it is too dark to really visit with my plants...

Eventually, I will have an update on all the new plants in the backyard. My fabulous mother-in-law took me plant shopping for my recent turkey birthday.

Landscape Views and other updates.

I just got some bird baths in the hopes of attracting more butterflies. They definitely add something to my garden. I was really excited to find these at Lowes. T and I went to several places and all the concrete bird baths were over $100 each. I got both of these for way less than $100.

The 4x8 bed is full again. Here is a new angle. It seems to be ready for some harvesting again. I'm saving that for my in-laws visit, so they will get some fresh kale, collards, and mustard greens from my garden.

After two shearings, the salads greens are ready to harvest again. They seem to grow back every two weeks. The rest of the snow peas and sugar snap peas have flowers. I have these big plants with yellow flowers in the 4X4 bed and as usual no clue what they are...

Too pretty to eat and other thoughts/plans

One thing that they don't warn new gardeners about in any of the books at least the ones I read is the internal struggle regarding the harvest because as the
 "Man" recently said about the salad greens is that they are almost too pretty to eat and at times I feel that it all looks too good to harvest. 



There are flowers on one of the pea plants which you can't really make out in these pictures. For some reason the camera didn't want to focus on the peas flowers. 

I think in my next garden planting after all these greens

are eaten and their season is over. I will be planting 3 times as many mustard greens, kale, collards, salad greens, swiss chard, and spinach. I see now were I went amiss in variety. We eat whole meals of greens especially those and so far the greens harvest has only been enough for a side dish or more like a seasoning even though the baskets seem full.

 I think I will also be applying this lesson to future fruit trees. I planted edible flowers, but now I wish I had less nasturtium, sweet alssyum, and other randoms and more things I actually eat a lot of which makes me

think I am cutting down my fruit tree list to only things I am sure the man and I will want to eat and are the easiest to grow like asian pear trees, plum trees, fig trees, and grape vines any other fruit will be done in severe moderation since he and I don't really seem to like to eat a lot of fruit. I'm still taken with the idea of planting pineapple kiwi, but it seems like a lot of work so that may be an even farther in the future endeavor. I would also eventually like to get into citrus or some really exotic fruit trees, but yet again that will also have to wait especially considering how much my mind has changed with new experiences and information and these trees and vines apparently take more work than at this moment I think I am capable up especially with all the moaning I do about watering my ollas and I only do that every other or every third day.

The Manperson made this taco salad eventually with his salad greens. He added soyrizo on top for a hearty vegetarian meal. I almost ate the salad greens for him since he was rationing out theones I saved for him.  Taking out the container everyday and munching on just a few of the salad greens.

Here is my less ornate salad, but still very tasty. Salad greens fresh from the garden do taste better. I also added some fresh mustard green to my salad to give it a bite.

The other issue that comes up is that when the crop is small it seems like too much trouble to bring it in and the temptation to eat it right there is overwhelming. I had three sugar snap peas today. I would have taken a picture but I ate them too quickly. Whoops, my bad. It was a small crop (all of three) and they were kind of small, but very round and not as tasty as I expected, thought the pride of eating something I've grown still makes up for any taste deficiencies. I'm regretting not getting the pea inoculant now. Next year I will go ahead and inoculate. Granted, there could also be something I didn't do. I think it is time to research peas because the plants are also kind of sad right now unlike my brassicas and salad greens.

Lately, my other concern has been the amount of money I have spent and want to spend on the garden. Sadly, money doesn't also grow on trees and I have no plans to sell future harvest. I want my garden to eventually be sustainable and self-sufficient, but bigs plans and ideas are great and all to help push one to do more, but one also has to be realistic and pragmatic about what one can truly handle and accomplish at any given moment in time/life (I'm hoping that is the dregs of the cold I still can't seem to shake or the rain talking, because I know that somewhere inside is the little devil that wants to dream big and accomplish much).

Routines

Everyday after work, one of the first things I do sometimes even before I go into the house is visit with my garden and check out how my veggies are growing. I didn't get to do that today because I was busy after work and didn't get home until after dark. As much as I enjoyed my evening, I had a moment of sadness that it was too dark (the street light is already out so I didn't even get a dim view) to get a really good look at my garden today to see how my plants are doing. I did go around and take some pictures though. It just isn't the same as getting a good look at them in the full light of day...My grasses look like they are about to be consumed by horse herb. I'm starting to wonder if I should excavate the area around them.

My salad greens and spinach are getting bigger. Most of my snow peas and sugar snap peas are connected to the chicken wire in the 4 x 4 bed. 

The broccoli now looks like it is trying to escape the 4x8 bed. I have all kinds of greens that have popped up. Not really sure at this point what they are though I am thinking of pulling out the seed packets to help with identification. The kale and mustard greens aren't as big because I have been cutting the large leaves and eating them. They were good eatin', but I'm kind of sad that they are so small now. I guess I will just have to deal with how things look after harvest time so that my tummy can enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Little Bits

There is something magical that happens overnight in the garden. This weekend most of the little sprouts seemed kind of unnoticeable and this morning they seem tall as if they pushed through the pine straw mulch and announced here I am world. My little bits are growing up.

Snow Peas

Sugar Snap Peas


Baby Kale

Raised Bed Update 2

Along the chicken wire, you can see all my sugar snap and snow peas reaching up out of the ground. I suspect in another week or two they will be climbing.

My transplants are getting bigger. I think they have all added new leaves and some have grown two inches.

You can also see that the mustard has bunches of little mustards of various varieties all around it. I pinched a few off today and ate them. Tasty micro-greens.

The kale also some little kale of multiple varieties growing around it.