Homegrown/Local Dinner

Quick post about my dinner tonight. I have been bad about posting pictures from my Fall garden, but in the meantime, here is a cool dish I made tonight using all local food or food from my garden.

Roasted acorn squash, mashed purple califlower with garlic and cilantro (all from Johnson's Backyard Garden -- jbgorganic.com). And as a side, greens (dino and tuscan kale & mustard greens) and bell peppers from my garden.

The salad was mixed lettuce, arugala, and sweet plum tomatoes from Johnson's Backyard Garden.

Julie said she like it so it must have been a success!

I will try to get some pictures of my Winter garden posted soon.

Mid Summer and Squirrels Wreak Havoc!

Squirrels have left their mark and made me do some "rearranging" of my vegetable plans. Summer heat has started to slow things down, but I am still having fun. The peppers have been doing well and I planted some okra hoping it can make it through the summer. Fall garden plans are brewing, and I am starting to get the itch. I just need to get through the next two months of Central Texas heat!

Our cantaloupe at the top of the trellis is swelling up. As with most things in my garden the ones that try to develop down low become breakfast for the squirrels. I find a new half eaten cantaloupe somewhere in my yard, weekly.

This is what it has come too. A tomato hut. While building this I realized I would pass the "South Austin School of Architecture". I'm pretty proud of this ridiculously tacky and ugly structure. It is working quite well. I did learn the hard way that the squirrels can chew through the netting, so now I am not only trying to play urban farmer but have to play urban rancher and walk my fence-line every morning to check for holes and do a patch work that rivals the overall quality of the structure itself. Ha.

So the story goes like this. I built the tomatoes structure and dusted off my hands, held my head high, and retired for the night pretty satisfied that I had done something major to beat the squirrels. I woke up the next morning only to find the squirrels gave me the middle finger and completely ravaged my corn patch. They peeled open and ate EVERY ear of corn that had formed and completely annihilated EVERY corn stalk. It literally looked like a tornado had come through. There were corn plants all over the yard and garden, and ears laying around half eaten. It was bad! But not a time to give up. I planted some peas and beans in that spot. It gets quite a bit of shade this time of year, so I thought maybe they would survive summer. We shall see.

Sorry for the blurry pictures and lack thereof. Its hot! Cheers.

Texas Natives = Pretty flowers without watering!

One of the best thing about using native plants is that you don't have to water after they are established (I haven't watered mine in over a year). Here are some pictures of my "Native Garden" from earlier in the Spring and currently.

Lindheimer Daisy (Lindheimera texana)

Brazos Penstemon (Penstemon tenuis)

Winecup (Callirhoe digitata)

Cool little grasshopper inside winecup.

Horse crippler (Echinocactus texensis)

Oh the Texas Bluebonnets (Lupinus texensis)

Going to be a lot more next year!

Engleman's Daisy (Engelmannia peristenia)

To the right are Maximilian Sunflowers (Helianthus maximiliani)

and on the left Tall Golden Rod (Solidago altissima)

Purple Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea)

Brown-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta)

Rock Rose (Pavonia lasiopetala)

Food is Coming!.

Things are starting to grow, bugs are arriving, and the squirrels have found the tomatoes. Oh, how I love the challenges of gardening!

Cantaloupe

Sungolds are starting to set. Now to keep the squirrels away, that is the challenge.

Some heirlooms are starting to show up, but I can't remember the name of this one.

Well the squash vine borer has officially arrived in my garden and taken out two of my squash plants. I at least got 5 crooked-necked squash before they got them. I was planning on not having squash for long, but was given some seeds so I decided to go for it. I plan on replanting the space with peas and okra. I am hoping that I can get a few more fruit off the one surviving plant, but I am not counting on it.

The cucumber beetles had a field day on my potato plants, as you can see below. I had a fit hand picking those little bastards everyday. DE, insecticidal soap, neem, bt, nothing seemed to phase them, just good ol' fashion hand picking. I think the wave is gone, I have only seen a few here and there the last few days, so maybe I managed to get through the onslaught.

The corn is growing. The ones in the back get a lot of shade, therefore are very stunted. Next spring I will make sure the patch is all in full sun so I can get some even growth. I think I will get a few cobs if all goes well.

So corn has been a neat learning experience. I have to admit my ignorance and say I only thought I knew how it grew. The male parts come up from the top like any ol' grass, but the female (cobs) form down in the middle of the plant. My cousins in MO will be embarrassed by me saying this, but I had no idea.

The top shoots up high and then the pollen falls down to the tassels below and pollinates the fruit.

All of my peppers are growing slow. The little are where they are may need some soil work. This jalapeno is starting to bear some fruit even though the plant is only about a foot and a half tall.

Veggie Garden Update

Dizzle Farm is starting to grow!

Crooked-necked squash is still alive. I am waiting to come out one morning and all three be dead. Hopefully I can keep the squash borer away. Its going to be a bad year for garden pest with all the rain we have been getting.

The peppers and eggplant are slow to grow.

I think we are having the most fun with these potatoes.

Tomatoes just started growing significantly this last weekend. I guess they finally have taken hold. Hopefully they are now too big for cut worms, since not of these are the original tomatoes planted. I have had to replace all my tomatoes so far, and one still needs replacing. Damn, cutworms.

Growing my own corn makes me happy, hopefully I can get it to grow this year.

Composting Shoe Update

So, I dug out the shoes from a long cold winter in the middle of the compost pile. It might have been warmer in there then in my house all winter. I was actually quite suprised by the progress of decomposition even though it has been an extra cold winter. Below are some pictures I took before I threw back in. This is pretty close to a one year update.


The shoes, both, were really flimsy, so they are starting to loose a bit of structure.


The gum soles of one shoe was cracking and splitting.

This actually the gum sole of the other shoe. You can see the light brown, which tells me the gum is pretty much gone on this shoe. Last post showed the gum sole of one shoe cracking like the picture above, but I am not sure if this is that shoe or not.


You can not tell from the pictures, but they are real flimsy at this point, so I am thinking this summer they should decompose a lot.

Spring is showing its pretty face in the Texas Natives bed

I have two things blooming in the Native Texas bed. Here is a little taste of what Spring will bring.

Salvia greggii

Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)

Spring Garden 2010

This Spring, I have decided to expand the garden and make a much larger in-the-ground bed. I always had to have raised beds with little fences around them, because my dog Dora would dig and root around in the beds. Since Dora has been gone, my spouse and I have been thinking about getting another dog, but we have decided to take a small break from the dog ownership world and do a few things we were unable to do while owning Dora. Mine, have a big garden. So, here is my newly build garden with our Spring veggies. It's called Dizzle Farms.

Potatoes in the two rows on the right and beets in the far row. Yellow crooked neck squash will go under the trellis. Gambling this Spring, since everyone says its hard to grow squash in Austin since we have a squash borer problem. I guess we shall see.

I call this the pepper and eggplant grove. Two jalapenos, two bells, and two ichiban eggplants.

Corn rows.

The tomato patch. Two sungolds, a solar flare, cherokee purple, best boy, and beef steak.

Cantaloupe.