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.

A Eulogy For Dora

Seeing that I have featured my dog (the "Compost Digger" I think I called her) in this insignificant blog, I find it only fitting to write a note about her on her passing.



I found Dora three years ago at about this time while bird watching in Sanger, Texas on the Lake Ray Roberts Greenbelt. She followed me around the whole day and I told myself that if she stayed with me until I got done birding, I would take her home and try to find her an owner. Well, that owner ended up being me. Over the years she went from being the dog with the funny name with a new home, to the dog with the funny toe that rolled in horse shit every time she stayed at my parents place, to the dog who absolutely hated the mailman and couldn't stop digging in my compost. So, to explain her lifeline. Her name: My Spanish-challenged self assumed that since El Dorado means the golden road, Dorado must mean gold, since she was golden and a female I figured I could add an "a" at the end to make it feminine and call her Dorada (Dora for short). So, first she got a stupid name, then moved to Corpus with us. Funny toe: Playing with our friends dog Tlaloc, and probably her only dog friend bigger than her, she tore the tendons on her middle toe. So, it healed funny and was always kind of looked weird and made a weird clicking noise when she would walk on our hard wood floors. Hating the mailman: Every since we moved to Austin she just despised all the mail carriers. Also, she wouldn't stop digging in my compost even when I put a fence around it, so I just figured she was turning it for me and let her at it.

Dora passed yesterday afternoon out at my parent’s house in Sanger. She was hit by a UPS truck, shortly after arriving out there to play on the “farm” while Julie and I were going to Mexico, which I find ironic since a year ago at this time she bit a mail carrier. Man, Karma is a bitch! My sisters and mother rushed her to the vet, but she did not make it. Luckily she died even before the UPS man could put her in the back of my sister’s car, so she did not suffer much, if any. Julie and I drove out there last night and buried her in my parents pasture. My family build a very nice box for her while we were driving and we put her favorite things in there with her. The top of the box read "Dora...from Sanger", it was an extremely thoughtful gesture. If you don’t know, I found Dora out in Sanger during Christmastime three years ago, and now during this Christmastime I buried her three miles from where I found her. Although way too early, I find the situation quite fitting.

For someone who doesn't have kids and I will quickly admit I haven't had many hard times in my life, this is pretty tough. But I know everyone loses pets, and it was bound to happen (maybe not in this way). I just hope I gave her a happy life while she was here with us. Thank you everyone who played with her, gave her a scratch or pet on the head, or let their dogs play with her. I know those where her happiest moments. She will be missed greatly, and now I have to do extra work to turn the compost pile.

Dora is survived by her Ma and Pa, and her two brothers of a different species, Zissou and Klaus.

R.I.P.

First Frost

This is a few days late, but we had our first frost when we woke up Saturday morning. At the same time as being excited because now the collard and mustard greens are suppose to taste better, we were a bit worried since my spouse, her girlfriend, and one of our grad school buddies had signed up to do a bike ride touring the urban farms and community gardens around Austin. It was a chilly bike ride, but we got through it with minimal complaints. Here are some pictures of frost on the garden.

Getting prepared the night before with my half-ass cold frame. i was worried my little lettuce sprouts might not be able to take it.



Waking up to the first frost of the season.

Front yard greens.



The collards.


Chard de Suizo.