Hot, Dry Days

Summer time is finally here and the days are now long and hot. If you're from East Texas, you know what I mean. Unfortunately there are more things to water in our yard than I have time or inclination to take care of. The vegetable garden is suffering, the flowers are wilted and the fruit trees and vines are begging for relief. I'm thinking about looking into some better sprinklers than the ones we have now.

We did finally get the garden tilled up. I say 'we', but what I mean is 'my husband'. It looks good! If only I watered as well as he weeded we'd be in great shape. I have several empty rows now where early spring vegetables used to be. I have my great charts from the extension office that offer suggestions as to what to plant this time of year. It's time to quit the whining about the heat and just get out there and do it. My husband would love a few more rows of okra, so maybe I'll surprise him and put a little more in.

And just for the record, a momma rabbit has seen fit to have her litter of babies in one of our raised beds. Three little rabbits can now be seen hopping merrily around in our struggling blueberry patch. The kids think they're great and I'm not sure what I think. Since I'm not ready for hasenpfeffer dinner yet, I guess they get to stay a little while longer.

Stay cool and happy gardening!

Organic Rose Gardening Seminar

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse will be hosting a seminar on caring for roses organically this coming Saturday, June 12th from 10AM to 11AM. Sue Zanne Petersen will be speaking. Admission for this seminar is free. Click here for Sweetwater's website.

Michele - Gardening seminar

The folks at Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse put on a great seminar last week. The topic was year round gardening and the speaker, Ed, was full of good information. Among other things, he pointed out that in our climate, you really can have a garden all year long. He showed charts and gave examples of vegetables that would survive cool Texas winters and well as ones that could cope with the heat of our summers. These charts are all available at the local extension offices, so if you haven't been there yet, you might want to check it out.

Another bit of information that I found to be very helpful was that you need good soil to grow good plants. Although that may sound obvious, I doubt that the soil in my garden would win any awards for proper nutrient balance. There are test kits available at most local garden centers that will do basic tests on your soil. Kits are also available at the extension office, and for a mere $10 they will send it off to be tested. You get a report back detailing what is good and bad about the soil, along with suggestions on how to get it up to par.

Natural pest control was discussed, as well as fertilizer, planting techniques, and the benefits of gardening. I always thought the main benefit of gardening was the food, but Ed pointed out that along with providing beauty and food, gardening is great exercise. It will get you outside on these beautiful spring days and get you moving.

Overall, it was a very well spent hour and I would recommend attending similar talks if you get the chance!

Announcement: Vegetable Growing Seminar

Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse in Denison will be hosting a Year Round Vegetable Growing Seminar this coming Wednesday in their greenhouse between 11AM and noon. Master Gardener Ed Supina will be hosting. Click here for details!

Michele - Patience

It's hard to be patient when there are so many tasty, homegrown treats just waiting to be eaten. Since these pictures were taken, some of the strawberries and mulberries have ripened. The kids have been having a great time running out there every morning and raiding the mulberry tree. They announced today, after picking a bowl full, that they wanted to make mulberry ice cream. Hey, I'm game to try!

The blackberries and squash lack a few weeks and the plums and peaches at least a month. That's ok, it gives us something to look forward to, as well as adds incentive to keep up the work in the gardens. So far my little helpers seem more interested in eating than weeding. No surprise there I guess, but I did find that given the choice between cleaning the house or pulling weeds, every one of them will choose the weeds. I may be onto something!

Happy gardening.

Jenny - Children's Garden Part 2

After a trip to Sweetwater Farm Greenhouse and our local home improvement store, the kids had a few plants for their garden. We got our hands dirty planting them in and just clustered them in the center of the garden for now. The tree rose looks beautiful, but the truth is, I was quite sure that it would be on its way out. I had pulled it up from the front walkway (to replace it with 2 matching potted versions). The kids couldn't bear to see it get dumped in the compost, so we potted it here in case it wants to live. Sure enough, within days the whole thing was brown and looked like it belonged in a Halloween display. A quick listing of the plants they chose: strawberries, snapdragons, lilies, petunias, celosia, diamond frost, and marigolds. I gently tried to steer them toward easy to care for plants, but let them chose pretty freely. It will be a good experience for them to learn how to care for each plant. Here's where we were after that.

Jenny - Children's Garden Part 1

We've spent the past couple of weeks creating a garden area for my two children (11 year old boy, 6 year old girl). They both wanted an area to play in and put plants of their choosing. I thought I might use this blog as a place to catalog our progress. On March 29th we started out staring at the area just outside my son's window. It was a prairie mess of johnson grass and other weeds. We pulled all that up, laid out landscaping fabric, lined the space out with some old bricks (in a pre-determined curve shape), and filled in the space with lots of gravel. Special thanks to Daddy for hauling and shoveling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of gravel. By the end of day we made very decent progress. Here's what it looked like.