sb158’s Valley Garden

sb158 | August 26, 2009

not to get discouraged. I see all the pretty pics of other people’s beautiful gardens with all they produce, then look out the window. Dry, brown, dead vegetation, tons of bugs, and no produce. Sigh…

Thank goodness for those pics, though, and for garden magazines. They help motivate when thinking about planting seeds and nurturing the babies seems like an exercise in futility. Sooner or later (most likely MUCH later), it will stop being well over 100 degrees every d&*m day, and we will get some rain. Then when other people are shoveling snow, I’ll be picking tomatoes and eating garden suppers.

Gardeners have to be either eternal optimists or masochists. Haven’t decided which yet.

Category: Garden Stuff | 6 Comments »
Tags: garden, weather

sb158 | August 23, 2009

Still too hot, dry, and windy for much to grow. The green beans I planted are toasting in the sun, only a few still hanging on. Still washing aphids by the herds off my peppers.

I did pull out the nasty cukes, since they were just infested with God-only knows what. I refreshed the dirt where the tomatoes and cukes were, and found some really big, ugly grubs in there. Threw them out into the lawn to fry in the sun, or be eaten by mockingbirds. Either way works.

Speaking of mockingbirds, I just barely managed to save some baby plants from that bugger the other day. I’d put some baby zinnias and dahlias on the picnic table to start hardening off, and just happened to glance out the window in time to see that bugger light on the table and start eying my babies as if deciding which buffet item to eat first. Ran out the door yelling at it, then set about finding something to protect them. Now I keep them covered when they’re out there, at least until they’re a bit bigger.

I had a bush bean plant starting to blossom the other day, and was getting all excited at the prospect of at least a few green beans. Went out the next day to find the blossoms and a good number of the leaves just gone. I put a cage around them, too, and haven’t seen any new violations. Then there were the lablab beans. They had a few nice blossoms on them one day, next day…nothing. Can’t put them in a cage, so am still trying to figure out what to do about that, aside from shooting me a mockingbird – and going to jail! This is war!

My baby tomatoes are just about ready to be planted in their new homes. I’ve left them out overnight and in direct sun for a couple days, despite the feeling that I’m torturing the poor babies. They’ve survived, so far, so I guess it’s time to plant them. I’ll get started on that tomorrow, I guess.

I mentioned that the green beans were frying; think I may have an idea to help. I’ve got all those nice containers, and some baby sunflower seeds, as well as a blue salvia almost ready to be planted. I decided to plant a few baby sunflowers and the salvia in a container on the windward side of the green bean planter. Maybe they’ll get just tall enough to be a bit of a windbreak and give a bit of shade. At this point, I’m desperate and liable to come up with any number of weird ideas.

Sigh…gardening in TX is not for the faint of heart.

Category: Veggies, containers, flowers | No Comments »
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sb158 | August 14, 2009

It’s still too hot; Hubby’s weather gizmo says 111 today. Much as I hated to, I had to go out there and spray the aphids off my peppers again; gotta keep up with it, as the little buggers multiple faster than tribbles(Trekkie reference, y’all). I got myself soaked in the process, which was a good thing. Cooled me off in that awful heat; probably kept me from dying of heatstroke.

Got all my SWC’s cleaned out and mixed some new dirt, getting ready for Round 2, which should commence shortly. Got tomatoes, peppers, and some broccoli, among other things, big enough to harden off. I put them on Hubby’s picnic table, in the shade, but am slowly exposing them to a bit more sun every day. Really gotta watch ‘em, though; this wind and heat will fry the poor little babies faster than I can blink.

Got some seeds sprouting to fill a couple off my new containers, and just got an idea for another one last nite while I should have been sleeping. I’ll start the seeds in a bit.

A couple weird things, though. I was about to pull my cukes, as they just aren’t fruiting, and are infested with whiteflies, among other things. All of a sudden they have just started growing like gangbusters, so now I’m debating. The watermelons in the SWC’s are doing the same thing. For a while it’s looked like they were barely hanging on, so I was babying them along hoping the melons would ripen before they expired. Now they’ve started growing new vines and blossoms, too. We’ll see what happens.

Later…

Category: Planning, Seeds/Seed-starting, Veggies, containers | No Comments »
Tags: containers, flowers, seeds, SWC, Veggies, weather

sb158 | August 7, 2009

is the sweetest guy. He was at the grocery store yesterday, and noticed they had a bunch of ceramic pots on clearance. Apparently they’re getting rid of summer stuff to replace it with…Christmas, maybe? He called and asked me if I wanted any; I’m sure you know my answer. He came home with 5 10.5″ pots, and asked me if I wanted any more. I told him I’d take all he wanted to buy; a gardener can always find something to plant in an empty pot, right?

So he came home today with 2 half-barrels and a bunch more ceramic pots. Pics and peppers within… (more…)

Category: Veggies, containers | 4 Comments »
Tags: containers, Veggies, weather