We were lucky

Ike didn’t batter us quite as badly here in Sugar Land as he did Galveston. But the garden will need some fixing.

The beans are doing fine, though:

Yesterday: High: 92, Low: 71, no rain, of course

Fall Planting!

Yesterday: High: 89, Low: 68, no rain, but look at that temp drop!

I got some seeds in the ground yesterday. Got some carrots, spinach, mizuna, marigolds, cilantro, and beans in the ground. I am so excited!!

I’ve also figured out what I want to make my trellis out of for my beans (and future vertical growers). Conduit pipe is recommended in the Square Foot Gardening book, but it’s not my style. I wanted something a little more esthetically pleasing. So I am going for copper pipe. I like that it doesn’t shine like galvanized steel, and will oxidize to a nice brown. It should be plenty sturdy enough for even the heaviest squash vine. And eventually it will turn a beautiful verdigris.

My mom is worried that someone is going to come steal it.

Yesterday: High: 91, Low: 65, no rain . . . so far we have had less than a TENTH of an inch of rain this month officially, and we are down over 4 inches for the year

Yesterday: High: 91, Low: 68, no rain . . . omg, is that the first stirrings of fall???

My Folia

Yesterday: High: 91, Low: 71, no rain

Sorry this is being posted so late, but I found a new gardening website. It’s called Folia, and it is really cool. Of course, I had to spend a whole lot of time setting up my account, but I think it would be much worse if I were trying to start when I had an already established garden, instead of one half empty bed and one totally empty bed.

I like the fact that you can set up tasks and reminders to do them. I’m going to set up tasks to remind myself to keep up with my succession planting.

Did I mention I got my seeds? Wait until I get a pic of my beans, they are awesome. I just wish my lettuce seeds weren’t backordered. Oh, well. I have a little time left for them, anyway.

Yesterday: High: 91, Low: 77, no rain

Not society garlic?

Yesterday: High: 96, Low: 78, no rain – wish Gustav had gotten a little closer

According to my mother, who has seen the lovely buds after they started opening, says that this is not in fact society garlic, but instead “plain ole garlic chives”. Hmph. *shrug* Oh, well. Still pretty.

Not quite square feet

Yesterday: High: 91, Low: 76, .08″ rain officially, but none here. Maybe some today . . .

I labored in my garden this weekend, and got my DH to help out. Along with pulling unproductive or unwanted plants, as well as quite a few weeds, we got the divisions for my “square foot” garden cut. These are just laid out there, not lined up or nailed together or anything. The problem I discovered is that my raised beds are 3′x6′ – outside dimensions! So, since the walls of the beds are made of 1×4s, the interior dimensions are closer to 2′5″x5′5″. Since I have it in my mind to have 3 boxes by 6 boxes, each box will have to have slightly less than one square foot inside. C’est la vie.

Seeds still haven’t shown up, although Park says they have been shipped. Hopefully today or tomorrow. I want to get carrots and lettuce in the ground this week.

Prepping for Spring

Yesterday: High: 94, Low: 75, no rain

My tomatoes got infested. After pulling a second hornworm off, I ended up getting an infestation of aphids (I think), which at first I just thought were drops of bird poo. Yeah, I know. You’d think after fighting a battle for every hibiscus bloom against aphids, I would know what they looked like! These were small white, and they didn’t move, a totally different variety from the ones on my hibiscus plant. Between the aphids and the excess watering via the storms a couple of weeks ago, my tomato harvest has gone to nil.

So I pulled them out.

It was weird. I didn’t feel guilty pulling them. I felt a little guilty for letting the aphids get my plants, but not for pulling out unproductive plants. My raised beds are reserved for plants that feed us, and these weren’t anymore. For the same reason, I pulled the lime balm. It was pretty, smelled nice, but it TAKES OVER! And I don’t use it. And I don’t have anywhere I want to just let it go. The next time I go up to Arbor Gate, I might get another one, and just put it in a pot, but if I let it go in one of me beds, it would grow like mint, and I would never get rid of it. As it is, I am planning on covering the bed with newspaper or something, just to make sure any runners I left (and I know I left runners, I’m serious, this thing is invasive!) don’t start up again.

Next up for this bed, harvesting a bunch of rosemary and thyme for drying. Then the thyme will either get seriously trimmed up and moved to another location or face the garbage can. The rosemary will get trimmed up, maybe moved. I love rosemary, and it’s another plant I can’t imagine having a garden without. So it will either get moved to a nice ornamental pot or left where it for a while after pruning. The parsley will be left where it is for now, and used in the kitchen, as will the chives. Probably in some drop biscuits.

This bed needs some serious additions to it, which I will do either with worm castings (once I get my worm farm up and running), or with kitchen waste (well, I will do that anyway as long as I can get to the soil), or with commercial compost (worst case scenario which I don’t foresee happening). I think I also need to go ahead and turn the soil over. Then it will be ready for dividers and spring planting.