The chickens have come home to roost...

Mud chickens that is.  For the last three days we have been receiving water from the sky.  A very unlikely event for 2011.  We normally will have over 34 inches of rain by this time each year.  This year we have 11 inches to date and about an inch of that fell in the last three days. 

We have become grudgingly accustomed to this year.  In addition to the lack of rain there has been many days of over 100 degree temperatures so that by now, when it is only in the mid to upper nineties, it feels relatively cool.  We have altered our lives to the extent that we water our struggling vegetable garden every single day.  We do this in spite of a water ban because of a happy little loophole in that ban.

If you water with a sprinkler system, you are relegated to watering only two days a week and those days are specified by whether your house address ends in an even or odd number.  The ban also requires you to water at certain very inconvenient times, basically from sundown to sunup.  The loophole is that you can water to your hearts content any day of the week and at any time if you hold the hose.  Now that is already our basic way of watering because it is much more efficient and effective than using a sprinkler.  If we were watering our vegetable plants with a sprinkler we would have either 1. dead plants because we would not be getting enough water to the plants we want to cherish and instead be watering the entire yard, or 2. have a water bill that pushes into four figures a month.  So the ban has not actually limited our watering of the plants.

The plants have shown their appreciation of this by dying by degrees instead of all at once.  The attrition level continues to climb as these poor plants, faced with a pitiless cloud free sun and temperatures more suited to cooking decide it is just not worth it and finally expire.  Others valiantly struggle onward.  The attrition has been worse on the cucumbers.  My husband has been nurturing and coddling these guys with cleverly placed shade cloths that he must remove at sunrise so they can get some sun but recover by noon or they just fry away.  If we get even one cucumber this fall it will be due to his undying cucumber loyalty.

In the beginning of September the 100 degree plus hatred of the Mega-Summer relented for about a week and we had temperatures in the 60s at night and 80s in the day.   The effect on everyone was transformative.  Unfortunately that kind of weather is so foreign to this part of the world it quickly continued its journey to its actual home somewhere far, far from here, but it did the job.  Mega-Summer was vanquished and although our temperatures have crept back into Summer realms, the waning daylight has effectively nixed any more of those 109 degree days.

And then it rained.  It wasn't just me who upon hearing the rain became startled and confused (what is that sound???) others reported the same.  I had to actually walk out into a pelting shower in order to seek the long forgotten umbrella somewhere hidden in my car.  It was raining - oh joy!!!

The joy has been somewhat diminished by its effect on a portion of our pathway in the garden.  At the first of the year when we were breaking ground on the new garden areas we found a brilliant solution to what to do with all the tons of clay we were unearthing.  We will just put it into the pathway and sprinkle it with grass seed and presto - instant grassy path.  We pulverized the clay and bought the grass seed and waited for a rainy day.  Fast forward about six months.  That clay path has become powder and now that it has rained enough to actually wet the soil it has become a clay bog.

This would be something that could be avoided except for two reasons.  A Border Collie and a Westie.  Now the Border Collie is doing what she thinks is a grand job in mixing up the clay for us.  It looks like a herd of Border Collies has passed back and forth through the pathway so that there are clingy little ridges of it strewn up onto the fence and surrounding garden areas.

The Westie who is older and therefore more reasoning about how staying clean will allow you better access to being allowed indoors avoids this pathway most of the time.  He does not avoid it when I am outside in the garden areas adjacent to the muddy path.  In fact, his sister the Border Collie likes nothing better than to ram his little body down into the mud any time he ventures into that area.  The net effect is muddy paws.

For the Border Collie the muddy paws are what you would expect.  A little under the nails and a little in between the pads.  For some reason, the Westie has feet that collect mud better than anything on this earth.  I was coming inside after scouting the areas I was going to plant my new squash plants (either destined for a wonderful fall garden or a continued source of plant sacrifice to the gods of unreasonable drought).  My husband was watching from the kitchen window and pointed out poor little Lewey's progress behind me.  His little feet had managed to attract so much mud they were like little puppy snow shoes, fully twice as large as normal.  His halting progress also indicated that this was very uncomfortable.  So, I scooped him up and spent a good 10 minutes in the tub de-mudding his paws.  The Border Collie also had to be debrided before coming inside.

This has all the makings of a big pain in the neck which is forcing my husband and I to come up with alternative solutions, of which there is really only one.  We have to fence off the muddy area.  Luckily we have the fencing for it, but unluckily we are out of fence posts.  This means we will either have to make the enormously bothersome trip to the lumber store or devise some alternate plan.  The problem with alternate plans is that the Border Collie absolutely loves the muddy part of the yard because that is where she has shouting matches with the squirrels, something that rates very high on the Border Collie obsession scale.  This will mean she will try with all of her abundant energy and intelligence to get around any barrier we place in her way.

It should prove to be an interesting time.

Garden Volunteers - Weeds Part 2

I thought I best finish out the weeds post that I started in Weeds Part 1.  This is not taking into account the many different types of grassy weeds we have growing and also leaves out some that I have as yet to identify, however, between these two posts this is nearly the complete set.

Sorrelvine
Cissus trifoliata   

This is a much better behaved vine in that it is slower to grow. I also like the leaf shape and the color much more than the Snailseed. The only odd thing about this vine is that it releases a weird odor when you crush its leaves or cut its vine.

Oxalis
Oxalis corymbosa

I know that people actually plant Oxalis and indeed we have added in other varieties, but this one came with the yard.  It grows everywhere and has such happy pink blooms. It is attractive and easy to pull up if it starts to crowd other plants.

Sunflower
Helianthus annuus

This weed came up right after we took out the hedge along our fence line and before we installed the ceder fence and the new garden beds. At first we were excited because we thought it would be one of those black and white big seeded ones. It turned out to be a thin black seeded one that was good for birds, but not something worth eating.

Perilla 

 When this first started to appear in my garden I thought it was purple basil, and it looks quite a bit like it. It is however Perilla, or Beefsteak plant. It is a relative of mint and has a very strong scent to its leaves. According to Wikipedia, this is the Red Shiso - Perilla frutescens var. crispa f. purpurea variety of Perilla.

Fungus

   

We haven't seen too many of our fungus friends this year because of the drought, but when the ground is damp enough we will see them in our front yard, as well as on several tree stumps. I have no idea of their exact variety but some of them are quite colorful.

Wisteria

 There is such a love and hate thing with this plant. Its blooms are heavenly in that they are abundant in their grape-like clusters. Yet the vine itself is extremely invasive and its growth can overwhelm and destroy fence structures and it can smother trees. This one came from the back of our yard and is doing its best to make its way along one side as well.

 So, there you have it, my almanac of weeds. 

Figs!

Fig season is upon us and that is both a good thing and a bad thing.  The amount of each is proportional to the specific year and there have been several years when the scales have definitely tipped toward the negative.  This year so far (fingers crossed) is turning out to be heavy on the good.

Of course I often feel this way at the start of fig season.  Right now the main tree is LOADED with figs and just today I picked about four pounds.  It is highly likely that four or more pounds will ripen every day for the next few weeks.

Sounds great right?  The potential wrench in the works is what sweet little Mother Nature will throw at me this year.  She is not bashful about it at all.  So far this year we have had months upon months of no rain whatsoever.  This tree happens to be strategically placed at the edge of one of our main garden beds.  Its roots spread out into this bed and also into one of the newer beds we have created.  So we have been able to counter the drought which would reduce the fig crop with our daily waterings of the garden beds.  Score one for the good column.

Now the figs this year are out of this world sweet due to the aforementioned drought.  There is a delicate balance to what makes a desirable fig.  Not enough water and you have a puny fig that is likely to be aborted by the tree before it matures.  Too much water and you have these huge sized figs with practically no taste.  This year it is just right.  Score another one for the good column.

But what is that lurking on the horizon.  A forecast for rain?  A tropical storm potential, or at least that kind of rain?  This would be just horrible for the fig harvest as much as it would be incredibly good for the rest of the plant life.  Number one, rain would prevent me from harvesting the figs, which pretty much means the birds and squirrels will get them.  Second, the rain at this point in the harvest will swell the fruit and diminish the sweet, sweet crop we are currently getting.  Third - and this is a big one - there will be mud.  Not just "Oh, land sakes, my little old shoes have a bit of mud on them," but "Dear God, just how much more of this muck is going to stick to my shoes each step I take."  I have been dreading our first real rain because during our 'make the new garden beds' efforts we removed what must be about a metric ton of clay which we used to build up some of the pathways.

Dehydrated Mud

Our desire was to seed this clay with grass seed right before the next rain and then it would be all grassy and perfect.  No rain, so no seeding, so now that pathway is about four inches of this fine and powdery clay dust that the resident Border Collie has managed to create by churning it up about a million times a day.  Right at this moment it seems very benign.  The birds love to dust bathe in it and so does the Westie.  He can turn himself from a basically white dog into a gray and grizzled goat looking creature in the blink of an eye.  Add a little rain and this will become... well you know in art class when you got to mold things in clay.  You know how that when you wanted to smooth out the sides of your lopsided pot you just used water and it made this slick and slippery surface.  Imagine that but about forty feet by twenty feet and four inches deep.  We are talking something far more malevolent than mud here.  And with the heat - I am imagining it becoming a knee, ankle and back wrenching slurry of canine coating muck and then hardening into an impenetrable surface imprinted with multiple dog footprints as well as full body impact marks from my husband and I taking a header into its expanse.  So, let's just say if it rains a lot we are going to chalk this one into the 'bad' category.

Now as I said I have been harvesting an ever increasing amount of fig, but it must also be said that in order to do this and avoid heat stroke I have been getting up at dawn.  This too is a fine line between light enough to see what I am doing and oppressive humid life draining heat.  I also have the difficulty of negotiating a ladder while I am still muzzy with sleep.  We got a really great five foot step ladder last year which is perfect for this task in that it does not weight a ton, but it is not perfect in that for me to reach the highest figs I have to step up on step higher than my ladder comfort zone.  I like to feel ladder firmly on my shins near my knee, not riskily on my shin near my ankle.  I keep writing my obituary while I am up there - 'her quest for figs put an end to her'.

It does not help it that as soon as I am up that ladder, the Border Collie decides it is time to 'zoom around the garden'.  The ladder is new to her and I don't think she really respects it.  After all, nothing bad has ever happened yet in regards to the ladder.  During her zooms she charges ahead at full tilt and frequently rebounds off of fences, trees, garden supports and, to the irritation of the victim, the Westie.  She knocks into Lewey so forcefully that she rolls him over three or four times.  We fuss at her, but she is very resistant to our desires and even deliberately aims for him.  So there I am up the ladder doing the fig thing, hunting for the ripe ones and she begins a zoom.  She hasn't come close to me yet, but I still grab hold of the branches just in case - not that they could support me, but perhaps they could soften the impact.  "How did you break your back, ma'am?" the nurse will ask me as I am admitted to the emergency room.   But it hasn't happened yet - so far...

Now, a definite bad column item are the birds and squirrels who consider this fig tree as theirs and how dare we try and harvest any of the figs.  My 'picking figs at dawn' has been very helpful in this regard.  Birds it turns out are lazy and won't get to the tree until the sun is well up.  The same thing applies for the squirrels.  This means I have the tree to myself, almost.  The almost are the bugs.  This morning there was this red and black bug hanging out near one of the figs.  He looked like he meant business, so I avoided him.  I have also been told that brown recluse spiders like to hang out in fig trees.  I have not seen any spiders and I would like to chalk this up to urban legend, but yeesh - what if it is true?  "How did you get that necrotic and infected spider bite, ma'am?" the nurse will ask me prior to prepping me for the amputation.

Go ahead.  Grab the fig.

Now just because the feathered and furred varmints are not in the tree when I am there does not mean their presence isn't felt.  Birds are not just lazy, they are wasteful. Each morning I find the ripest and most succulent figs stabbed open via a bird beak.  Just eat the whole thing - okay.  What is up with this 'put your beak into it' method.  And it is not like they come back to it either.  That fig is ruined as if some one has picked up a pastry from a buffet line, taken a bite out of it and then put it back on the tray.  Nobody else wants it now you wasteful avian pest.  And of course since that didn't satisfy them - how could it since they barely ate a molecule of it - they have to peck another one.  Now don't get me wrong.  I know the rules and the birds will get their share.  It's not like we net the tree to keep them completely out.  We actually like that our garden helps support the local wildlife.  My husband asks me each time I pick, "Did you leave some for the birds?"  Yeah, I sure did.  The ones they pecked already.  Stupid birds.

The squirrels are entirely different in their approach from the birds.  First of all they will eat the whole fig - no worries there. But they have an insatiable appetite and can seriously diminish a crop.  Although I would prefer they not visit our tree there is little we can do to keep them out.  Last year when we had taken down a tall hedge and before we had installed our ceder fence, the squirrels became very brazen.  Previously, the tall hedge and the large canopy of the fig tree practically merged, so it used to be no problem for the squirrels to easily move in and out of the tree.  Without the hedge they had to make an acrobatic transit down the power lines that run on the edge of our property.  However, when that seemed too much work they just hopped across the lawn and climbed the tree.

Now if there is one thing certain in this world it is that dogs naturally hate squirrels.  During the life of our Schnauzer Chewey, he made it his duty to police the fig tree each year.  The moment we opened the back door he would charge out to the fig tree and shout at the squirrels.  The squirrels would respond by abandoning ship and launching themselves out of the tree with vigor.  This sometimes resulted in near misses where Schnauzer nearly catches squirrel.  Oh how that Schnauzer wanted to catch the squirrel.  Later when the Westie was added to the mix and especially when the hedge was removed the near misses were sometimes merely a fraction of an inch.  We figured if the Schnauzer caught the squirrel it would likely get away with little damage, but if it were the Westie instead - dead squirrel.  Maybe the Westie might sustain a little damage, but - dead squirrel.  They have as yet to catch one though.

Some of the squirrels took to taunting the dogs from the power lines and sometimes from the top of  the fig tree.  Their little 'chu chu chu' taunts would drive the dogs into high pitched barking fury.  Some of those squirrels are still around.  One especially has been casing the joint this year.  He travels the high wire of the back electric lines and sometimes perches on the utility pole.  He is very concerned this year and has every right to be because of the addition of the Border Collie.  Trudy hates the squirrels.   She hates them so hard that she launches herself up the eight foot ceder fence as high as possible and based on the paw prints she is traveling a good six or seven feet upward.  She also launches herself up the six foot back chain link fence which thank God has a healthy amount of vines towering over its top or she would go sailing over it.  She is so fast and so determined that the 'will the dogs ever get a squirrel' question may be answered this year.

Evidence of Trudy's rebounding practice

So, as we tally it all up, in the plus column we have heaps and gobs of great tasting figs.  In the negative column we have the crack of dawn fig picking, scary bug encounters, wasteful birds, and dogs driven to athletic mayhem by irritating squirrels.  If we don't get the torrential floods they are predicting with the accompanying mud then I say this is definitely, all things considered, a better than average fig year.

Evil Tomato

It looked just like another tomato plant which quite frankly don't normally look all that evil.  It was a yellow pear tomato and even though I already had several tomato plants, I bought it on a whim because I didn't have any cherry type tomatoes.

I am trying to remember the exact event, because it would have been nice for there to have been some cackling old woman in the background as I purchased the plant. Or maybe a roll of thunder, but that was unlikely because of our extended drought.  Maybe the drought somehow affects the abundance of cackling old ladies too - I don't know, but I wish there had been some sort of portent of doom.

I planted it in the garden bed near the first three tomato plants, which were doing very well.  At this point in the year I was still of the opinion that three plants in the six by six foot bed was not fully utilizing the space.  However, the plants were already about four feet tall and growing in a way that was quickly decreasing the space between them.  I put the pear tomato in the farthest reach of that garden bed, near the dog proof fence.

Now this was not the first year I had grown a yellow pear tomato.  One year I had the brilliant idea that since we had all these large clay pots, we should use them to grow our tomatoes.  This idea was so brilliant because it meant we could use the ground space for other plants and (this was the part I was most proud of) we could move the pots to whatever spot in the garden seemed best.  It was the best idea I had ever had on paper.  So we filled up three huge clay pots with what we felt was a 'tomato growing' mixture of sand, topsoil and compost.  We positioned each pot in a strategic area and planted them with tomatoes.  One tomato was a bush type, one was a Roma tomato and the third was a yellow pear tomato.

This all started out great, but forget moving those behemoths.  The best you could do was turn the pot and even that took some effort.  No problem because they were 'strategically' placed.  The plants grew wonderfully.  Now tomatoes are a vine in that they will grow up straight and tall for a short time then they will flop over unless you trellis or stake them.  Putting them in a pot that starts their ground level at about three feet high seems to accelerate the 'flopping over'.  So we staked them, which meant we had these three foot tall pots with six or seven foot tall poles sticking out of them.  It looked like very bad modern art.

But back to the yellow pear.  That potted plant grew fabulously and began to set what looked to be an enormous number of fruit.  Then I noticed a couple of brown leaves.  No worries, after all it was in a pot and maybe it was not able to retain enough moisture.  I gave it a good watering and also topped the pot with a mulch to help it retain moisture.  More leaves began to turn and soon I was wagering whether the fruit it had set would be able to ripen before the plant succumbed to whatever was going wrong with it.  I think we got a couple of tomatoes from it and then it died.  I just chalked it up to the 'putting tomato plants into pots was a stupid idea' scenario I had manufactured and my general gardening amnesia blotted the incident from my mind.

So, I was looking at this yellow pear tomato in this years garden and it was putting on all sorts of great fruit.  My mind had a little shudder of deja vu.  I brushed it off.  The plant looked great.  Then I noticed a brown leaf and my deja vu came over and kicked me in the shin.  I said "No, No," as I clutched my imaginary shin, "This means nothing."   The decline was dramatic and the plant went from 'happy little tomato' to 'sad and wilting - won't you put me out of my misery' within about a week.

The unfortunate thing was that the growth of the other tomato plants in that bed and the growth of this tomato plant had somewhat merged into a six by six foot mass of tomato plant.  I had been using a method of tomato support where I had arranged a couple of twelve foot bamboo poles at the edges of each tomato plant.  I then used nylon string to weave in between these poles and contain the tomato plants - sort of a build as they grow kind of loose caging.  It pretty much served to form the tomatoes into a solid mass of leaves and branches.

I think the instructions for this kind of tomato staking said something about cutting off the side shoots that sprout up from the tomato vines, but I don't do this because it causes me guilt.  Yes, I don't just have plantricide guilt from thinning seedlings and pulling up weeds.  I also have a form that says to me "Hey, you could root that cutting -and if you don't you might as well just be committing plant murder."  Someday I am going to sit that weird part of my mind down and tell it what I really think of all its anthropomorphic tendencies.

So, oh yes, back to the yellow pear tomato.  It wasn't happy just dieing by itself - it sent it evil little whatever into the other tomatoes in that bed and they began to die off as well - which was really tragic because they were sporting a huge, enormous, tremendous quantity of fruit.

I rushed to the almanac of plant diseases which these days is the internet and found out that what that evil little yellow pear tomato had done was bring in a case of late blight to my paradise.

What late blight does to your tomato plants.

Late blight according to helpful UMass Extension: "is caused by Phytopthora infestans is the most severe disease of potato and tomato. The pathogen, the cause of the Irish potato famine of the 1840's, caused widespread starvation and immigration. The pathogen spreads easily on wind and rain and is capable of destroying entire fields in a few days. Late blight is extremely destructive when not managed, quickly killing foliage and infecting fruit and tubers."

So the evil little yellow pear tomato had brought the tomato version of the Irish potato famine to my garden.   I managed to keep the tomato plants alive by constantly spraying them with fish emulsion so they could at least ripen the fruit they had set.  This worked and in fact right now the plants are rebounding - not that they can set fruit in our 90 - 100 degree temperatures, but it does my heart good to see them recovering.

They look atrocious though with masses of dead leaves and stems.  The yellow pear that started it all.  I pulled its evil little body out as soon as I realized its treachery.  No guilt for that one.

I am RAIN

It's day number... well who knows when it actually rained here for greater than 10 minutes in the last six months or more.  I think we are now at a negative point in the rainfall for this area.  You know how they say "We have 6 out of the 10 inches we normally get for this time of hear"... well we probably are sitting at a negative 6 inches for our year.  This means that the ground is so dry it is actually pulling the humidity out of the air.

Not that we couldn't do with less humidity.  How is it that we can be going through this drought and yet the moisture just hangs in the air?  I mean come on Nature the dry hot weather is punishment enough.  Do you have to taunt us too.  "Feel this?" Nature asks as she slaps and 88 percent humidity day into your face, "It could be rain if I wanted to work that hard and form it into drops, but Nah - I think I'll just take the day off."  Stupid, lazy Nature.

So, since Nature won't do her job, I have stepped in and become the rain for my garden.  Actually I think of it more like RAIN - as if I have become the personification of that phenomenon.  To the outside observer I may look as if I am some overly hot, tired and strangely dressed person holding a garden hose, but on the inside I am RAIN - a benevolent supernatural force bequeathing a fountain of refreshment to the downtrodden plant masses.

Perhaps it is just the humidity laden heat addling my brain, but this somehow makes the hour or more I spend each and every morning since the first week of March watering the garden just a little bit more tolerable.  I know what you are thinking -"Just turn on the sprinkler and stop your moaning"  but a sprinkler would not do.  In a prolonged drought you must focus your watering where it matters otherwise your water bill will easily slip into the triple digits and you will be paying a high premium for growing your own food.

That's what makes RAIN even more powerful.  The water only falls where I choose to let it fall.  Some plant pisses me off and I can cut off its supply - and don't think I fail to use that threat to certain plants that seem to be holding back on the food crop.  "Set that cucumber you little vine or else," RAIN says, holding the stream of water just out of reach.

Actually RAIN may talk big but in truth I am a wimp when it comes to 'cutting off the supply'.  There are several vegetable plants that have gone past the usable stage and are just hanging around the garden now, looking sort of shabby.  I consider not watering them because after all I am a gardener and we are supposed to be efficient and intolerant of plant weaknesses.  I, however am troubled by a tendency toward anthropomorphism - in short, every plant out there has a distinct personality.   This tendency makes it extremely hard to do things like 'thin the seedlings' and gets much, much worse the longer a plant has been growing.  Killing such a plant gives me a pang of conscience - like it's a small murder.

I am able to pull weeds because I think of them as violent and rude gang members attacking my companion plants but even some of them get into my psyche and I let them live out there lives unmolested.  As you have no doubt already guessed, my garden sometimes looks like a plant riot.

But at least when I am out there I am surrounded by 'friends' - and I am RAIN. 

Gardening A,B,C

When you have something that dominates your life, you tend to take a lot of photos of it.  That is especially true of me and gardening.  Recently I collected my photos through the years and in organizing them I put them into folders according to plant types as well as a few other designations.  The computer brings up the files in alphabetical order, so I thought I would go through them with you that way as well.

A

Starting off the A category is a lovely yearly favorite of mine - Allyssum.  Its dainty little flowers create a sweet smelling carpet.  It definitely wants things to be cool though.  Once the heat gets going little Allyssum will gradually just seem to vaporize.  First go the flowers and then the plant just shrinks back into nothing.  I have had better luck with it in pots rather than the garden bed.

One of the fabled, ever-bearing Amaryllis.  Since these are given to me from someone who forces the bulbs each year, I am always pleasantly surprised to see what blooms they will have.  I have no idea what this ones pedigree is, but it likes to bloom several times a year.

This is Angelonia which I put into the garden for the first time last year.  It managed to make it through August and then the two low twenties freezes we had last winter.  So not only does it have these masses of orchid like bloom clusters, but it is hardy as well.  My kind of plant.

B

This little guy is Barcopa.  I tried him last year and at first things were great and it grew and bloomed very happily.  Then it just died.  So, it has entered into the category of plants I have killed. 

Ah Basil.  A true gardeners friend in that it will grow very well with little effort.  I love it for its aromatic leaves as well as for eating.  Unfortunately it is another plant that finds hot weather offensive.

Here is the bloom of another plant I tried last year for the first time.  This is Bee Balm or Bergamot.  It also survived punishing heat and icy cold which puts it into the category of plants I have not yet killed.

This is Brugmansia also known as Angel Trumpet.  It is a tree like bush that will produce hundreds of these trumpet shaped blooms.  They hang almost a foot in length and give off a heavenly scent at sundown.  To see one of these at their peak of blooming is amazing.  Your mind does not want to believe a plant like this can exist.  The bonus is that they  are very easy to grow from cuttings and even though the winter is tough on them they will come back from the roots.  Their problem is that they like it shady and wilt in the heat.

This is the bloom of Buddleia or Butterfly Bush.  I had high hopes for this plant because of its great blooms and because it was touted as growing into a tall mass which I wanted to use to shade some tall ginger.   It was one of those I tried last year who just up and died.  Too bad.

This is Bulbine.  This is the view of its stalk atop which are a mass of these yellow flowers in a cluster.  This one has been surviving well and I was surprised because its leaves make you think it is a succulent that cannot survive intense cold.  Apparently it is much hardier than it looks because it just shook off the cold and has come back rowdier than ever.

C

I have a thing for Caladiums, but I also cannot get in rhythm with them.  Due to our overly wet winters, the bulbs seldom are able to survive more than one season.  They like it in the shade and they don't like intense heat.  Since they are planted as a bulb I am never sure exactly when to put them in to maximize their incredible leaves.

This was the hardest of the plant pictures to choose from since I assigned myself the limit of only one picture per plant group.  Cannas are one of my most prized plants.  This variety has such great leaves that I thought this view was better than the blooms.

This is Cosmos and I like them because they will bloom and bloom and bloom.  Right now the bed I have them in is being slowly overtaken by the Scented Geraniums I put in this year, but this one valiant Cosmos is fighting back.

I had this plant for years before I ever knew what it was.  It was given to me from a defunct greenhouse.  I liked it for its huge curling strap like leaves and its trumpet shaped blooms that arrive several to a stalk.  This it turns out is Crinum.  There are many different varieties but I have no idea which one this is. 

That is enough of the plant alphabet for now...

Garden Photos - Part 2

It is only in retrospect that we can see some things and that is very true about the garden.  I have been mulling over some of my garden photos through the years and found some photos that showed the garden in similar views.  It is amazing to me how much the garden changes from year to year.  The above photo shows the garden as it was in June 2010 and June 2011.

This is a view of the center of the garden starting in 2009, all taken in June.  This is a part of the garden we have been changing the most in the last few years.  As late as 2006 there was an enormous pecan tree in this area of the garden.  I found some video from that era that showed the pecan tree, but apparently that video was taken by some drunken monkeys because the camera was swinging too much to get a decent frame grab.  Stupid monkeys.  I will keep digging in my files and see if I can find some more of this view from earlier years.

This view is just to the left of the garden center and this is one of our oldest garden beds.  We have not changed the dimensions of this bed by much, but you can see how year to year we change what the bed contains.  To the left of this photo in 2009 you will see our fig tree in an upright state.  In the 2011 photo you can clearly see how much that tree now leans thanks to hurricane Ike.

These are the closest shots I can find so far, but we have enormous quantities of pictures from our gardening through the years.  I will create some more of these montages unless the drunken monkeys have gotten to more of the images.

105

That was the high temperature on Sunday.  105.  It set records for the hottest June 5th in recorded history for this area.  I can't tell you how happy that makes me, mostly because sarcasm is hard to get across in writing.  They also promised us a chance of rain but that was an empty promise.  No rain.

With it this early in the year it is hard not to have all sorts of anticipatory stress about the actual summer.  How many 100 plus days are we going to have?  Is it ever going to rain?  Will the weather forecasters ever stop being so unnaturally happy and perky?   It is not like they have anything new to say these days.  Hot and humid covers it.  But no, they have to justify their existence so they talk about high pressures (currently sitting right over our heads) and lie about the chance of rain (almost a 25% chance for scattered showers).  They also get some sort of thrill now that it is officially hurricane season of looking at amorphous blobs of weather in the Atlantic and speculating on all manner of outcomes.  In the end what it all boils down to is that it is hot and humid.

Having lived on the Gulf coast of Texas most of my life I could write the book on hot and humid.  As children we dealt with it by finding shade and adventure in equal amounts.  Too much shade and not enough adventure meant boredom, but too much adventure and not enough shade could mean heat exhaustion.  It was close, but we usually chose boredom by a thin margin.

I can remember one particularly hot day when my cousin Bobby and I had retreated to the upstairs loft of the barn.  We had the window open and it was so hot this day there were not even wasps to bother.  We languished in the heat trying to get our baked brains to come up with something entertaining.  This was when we discovered the melting point of crayons.  We had a box of crayons and some paper in the loft in order to plan out our adventures.  Not all of the crayons were the same, some being actual Crayola brand but others being some sort of cheaper type.  One of the cheap type had ended up in a patch of sunlight and when I picked it up it was no longer firm and I was able to bend it into a circle.

Just behind the barn and attached to it right below the north facing window was the shed roof.   You could climb out the window onto this roof easily and we often did that when our parents were not looking.  This day putting a bare foot onto that roof was asking for a blister.  It was so hot there were heat waves coming off the top of it.  We decided to melt some more of the crayons so we found an old jar lid and put four crayons into it.  I leaned out the window and Bobby held my legs so I could place the jar top onto the shed roof without having to set foot on it.  After that we waited and watched.  It must be said getting the two of us to sit still was not something that was easily accomplished but given the summer heat of that day, being still was a survival skill.  After several minutes as we watched and nothing changed we began to fidget.

"Do you think they are melted now?" Bobby asked.  "I don't know," I said, "They don't look any different."  He braced my legs and I leaned down for the jar lid, which was now very hot to touch.  As I was lifting the lid the heat became unbearable and I dropped it, scattering all but one of the crayons onto the shed roof.  The one I brought up was Aqua Blue and it was hot enough to bend.  We then set about finding another container and putting more crayons out to melt.

What we learned was that not all crayons melt easily.  The cheaper type melted more because they seemed to be made of some sort of wax.  These we could not only bend but actually mush into a ball shape.  The Crayola brand resisted melting.  Some colors would get hot enough to bend a little but others seemed almost impervious.  Eventually we became frustrated and bored and threw quite a few crayons onto the shed roof in a fit of pique.  There is no boredom like melting crayon boredom.

As an adult I have several hot summer related memories.  There was the year we went without air conditioning.  Daytime was fine because we just stayed out of the house, but nights were endless.  To sleep we pointed three different fans set on high at the bed.  It felt a little like trying to sleep in a hot windstorm.  However, the most memorable summer of heat I can recall was the year we built the greenhouse.

I forget which year it was except that we had more over 100 degree days than any previous record.  For some reason we set about building this greenhouse in August.  The plan was simple.  Dig post holes.  Place landscaping timbers into holes.  Roof with opaque fiberglass panels.  The problem was that it was over 100 degrees and there was no shade.  My husband came up with the ice water idea.  He reasoned that what happened in heat exhaustion was that the brain itself became overheated.  If we had a way to 'chill' the brain the body could work without harm.

So we set up a cooler filled with ice and water.  We placed several towels into the slushy mix.  We would work for a time and when we felt a little hot, we would get a towel out, wring it out and apply it to our necks.  It was deliciously shocking to feel the blast of frigid cold on an overheated body.  It also seemed to do the job of preventing us from becoming overheated.  We started just using the chilled towels on our necks, then we began to place the towels over our heads and under our hats to more directly chill the brain.

Eventually as we continued to work day after day in the miserable heat we came up with the ultimate solution.  It was simple and very effective.  You worked for several minutes until you felt a little hot.  You then went to the ice water cooler and filled a bowl with icy water.  You dumped the icy water over your head.  After you stopped screaming and wriggling you went back to work.  You made sure to repeat this process at least every 20 minutes.

Now there are plenty of people who have done this process purely for recreation.  They sit in a hot tub or sauna until they are hot and then run out into the snow and roll around.  I am not sure what they felt, but I can tell you the contrast of oppressive heat to numbing cold is a shock.  Your body is first all 'Help me I am so hot' to immediately 'Help me I am so cold'.  It not only stops the heat build up to your system it is also very invigorating.  Using this technique we were able to finish building the greenhouse and not suffer heat stroke. 

I am not sure what this summer is going to bring us, but if the trend is going to be an early Mega-Summer then I just might be taking an ice water dip sometime soon.

Weeds - part 1

Sometimes it is the unexpected that gives us what we didn't know we were missing. This can definitely be the case when it comes to gardening. Most of the time a gardener sees a 'weed' as anything they did not put into the garden themselves. Weeds for the most part are unwelcome, but if we just relax a little bit we can discover that weeds are truly fabulous in their own right.

The following is a short list of some plants that sprang up in our garden with no assistance from us. We have no idea where they came from and for the most part welcome them in as part of our landscape. Sometimes they can be a little tiresome since they are typically very vigorous in both their growth and spread, but we find that with a little pulling here or there we can be very weed tolerant.

Late winter and Spring are a great time to meet many of these volunteers as they are often the first things that come up after the bleakness of the winter months have worn thin.

Henbit

lamium amplexicaule

   

Henbit is one of my favorite weeds.  It comes up early each spring and I like the way its leaves make a circle around the stalk.  It has little purple flowers and overall it is dainty and unassuming.  It is actually considered an edible salad green. They say to harvest the young shoots and leaves in the spring. I have considered doing this, but aside from munching on a leaf or two I have never had a henbit salad.

Velcro weed 

galium aparine

It starts off very tame looking but very soon will smoother just about anything with its wild and abundant growth. Velcro weed is very easy to pull up though so more of a mild nuisance. It becomes much more trouble if I let it get to its seed bearing stage because those little seeds will cling to the dogs fur and create mats. It too is considered an edible green and you are supposed to steam it before eating. A good idea because it isn't called Velcro weed for nothing. The leaves, stems and seeds are all covered with fine, stiff hairs and they cling to everything. Supposedly this plant was the inspiration for the fastener Velcro. Aside from eating its stems and leaves, they also say you can use the seeds as a coffee substitute. I have never eaten this plant, so I can't tell you what it tastes like. I figure if it was spectacular as a steamed green or coffee substitute it would be commercially grown.

Marsh marigold

Caltha palustris

I really like this plant and try to keep it in at least one area until it forms its seeds. The blooms are not much to look at being rather small, but I like the fleshy leaves and spiky seed pods. It forms fairly large clumps. Don't eat this one! It is toxic unless you cook it and cook it and cook it again, according to my wild edible plant guide. I figure anything that stays toxic through two cookings is not something I ever want in my mouth.

Elderberry

I like it for its pretty flowers, its purple berries and the fact that it grows tall enough to be good shade for some of my shade loving plants. I know that people do things like dip the flowers in batter and fry them, but I figure if you want to eat fried batter that badly, you might as well just eat a donut. People also dry the fruit and use it in pies and I think they make wine out of the berries. Like many plants though you don't want to eat its leaves, stems or roots. I am not tempted at all because it gives off a weird odor.

Snailseed 

Cocculus carolinea   

It took me a while to find out what this vine was. It looks somewhat like a vine called Greenbriar, but Snailseed is less woody than Greenbriar and also it produces a lot of berries that birds like to eat. I do not like this vine because it grows about a foot a day and will choke out other plants. Before I found out its real name we called it the Sewer vine because my husband first encountered it growing over someones outhouse. If it would just grow on my fences I would like it better.

Trumpet vine 

Campsis radicans.

This is a vine we tolerate more than others due to its beautiful and prolific blooms.  Trumpet vine can be very invasive, but it does pull out by the roots fairly easily when it is young.  We have to watch out because it comes up everywhere.

It likes to grow up buildings and trees. We had a long standing vine in our front yard that grew up a tall Chinese tallow tree. The vine was so prolific that its flower masses were all the way up the forty feet of this tree. A whole flock of hummingbirds chased each other around that tree all season long. Unfortunately hurricane Ike put an end to that tree. We still have masses of the Trumpet vine growing along our fences and buildings. It even has a very attractive immature vine.

Turk's cap 

Malvaviscus arboreus var. Drummondii

This is another favorite of mine.  Turk's cap is a relative of the hibiscus plants but seems to prefer the shade.  Along with trumpet vine it is also quite attractive to hummingbirds.

Dollar Weed or Pennywort  

Hydrocotyle spp.

It gets its name from the half dollar sized round leaves it bears.  I hear commercials all the time talking about herbicides to help people control their Dollar weed problem. It is one of the easiest plants to pull up, but it does have a lot of runners. I like it because it acts like a living mulch and keeps the soil from drying out.

Papyrus 

Cyperus papyrus

It will form large stands that can grow about six feet high. Papyrus can be useful as a fence block, but it also sprouts readily from its many seeds. Easy to pull up when young. I guess if things ever got really tough I could learn to make paper from it. Some types of papyrus are edible. I have no idea if this one is or not.

Elephant ears 

 Colocasia

I am not sure if we ever actually deliberately put any of these bulbs in our garden. Elephant Ears sprout up in various locations at will. I try to corral them into one area. If they get enough water and we don't have a winter freeze they will grow quite large.

Four O'clocks 

Mirabilis jalapa

This is the most fragrant of all our weeds.  I know they are an introduced species but we never put them in our yard. They are a bit of a bother sometimes as you can almost never get the roots. The stems are easy to break off, so I can control them that way. They seem to be mostly a problem when we are digging garden beds as they form these huge root knots that get in the way of the shovel.

Wow, that's a lot of weeds so far and there are more to go but this is enough of the weeds for one post.