The Whole Dramatic Story and Hot Action Photos!

(excerpts from my garden diary Friday, April 20, 2012)

Little was I expecting this morning when I awoke that by the end of the day I would be dealing with "GARDEN DRAMA" ... cue the intense music.

The weather reports talked about a front moving through and quite frankly I was looking forward to a little more rain and cooler weather.  'How nice,' I was thinking, 'a little more spring before the hot weather settles in.'  How naive of me.  Nature is nothing but an opportunistic drama queen looking for a stage.

Was I worried when I heard the weather report stating that there would be 'thunderstorms' and 'wind' and possibly 'dime sized hail' - pfft - of course not.  Am I not a veteran of 'weather'?  Have I not lived my life in southern coastal Texas where weather is an action verb.  I have been 'weathering' storms all my life so I was not about to raise an eyebrow at something as simple as a spring front blowing through.

So okay, it was a little dramatic when the storm hit and immediately blew the transformers at my office.  And yes, okay, I did step away from the windows for a few seconds when the bushes outside the windows looked like they were trying to come inside.  Yep, the wind looked a little whippy and the sky a little greeny and I did the prudent thing and moved a little more inside the building I was in.  No sense tempting the tempest to throw a branch through a window.

What fronts typically do in Texas...

But hey, being the cool nonchalant weather hardened person that I am I quickly returned to the window area.  After all the front had hit and that meant the worst of the storm was essentially over.

Did I spare a thought for the garden - no.  

Well, while I was working in darkness my husband was observing the storm on the home front.  He described it as at first just rain and wind then he thought he heard a couple of hard sounds... like hail.  Then he heard more hail and went out on the back porch to find it was hailing pea sized ice.  Then it was garbanzo bean sized and finally it was maybe dime sized.  For about three minutes.

What dime sized hail looks like on a patio.

When he told me this after I got home my first thought was 'goodbye garden' because three minutes of dime sized hail might not be much to your roof or your car, but it can be vegetable murder to a garden.

I went out with much trepidation to check out the damage...

The bush beans were tussled and some of their cages had been knocked over as if a very rude bunch of air had sat on top of them.  The were disgruntled but okay.  The okra plants looked stunned but otherwise none the worse for wear.  Same for the cucumbers, the squash, the collard greens, the onions, the other cucumbers... it all looked okay.

But then...


NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!  Bunny Tomato!!!!!!!!

Bunny Tomato prior to the storm...

Bunny Tomato after the storm... sniff...

Yes, Bunny lost a major limb and two pounds of fruit.  Shudder!  I broke the news to the dogs and this was their reaction:

The Westie was stunned.

I know it might look like he is just relaxing on the kitchen floor, but I tell you he was stunned!  Just look at his eyes:

You can see it all in his little beady eyes...  the horror, the horror...

The Border Collie was not much better:

Oh sure, she might look happy and smiling, but really underneath it all she is mortified.

See?  See the mortification in her eyes?

We will get through it all right.  Bunny Tomato is sure to rally with her other limbs and devote even more resources to the remaining dozen or so tomatoes she has set.  I am sure in time the dogs will get over their emotional upset.   No doubt a serving of fried green tomatoes will help us all.

Garden Check In

April has been bringing showers this year, which is a very welcome thing considering how badly nature treated us last year.  In fact it has been raining so much it really has made it difficult for me to install the rest of my watering system.  In the meantime of course my garden has been growing by leaps and bounds which made it a virtual flora wrestling match to install the last few soaker hoses.  Finally though the last one went in with a bunch of huffing and puffing and sweating on my part.  All that rain makes the low 80 degree weather seem like a sauna. 

I finally got the camera out this evening and decided to take you on a tour of the garden as I saw it today.

First stop is my newest bit of yard art.  I present to you Garden Koi.  He is lurking in the Herbie bed right now, but I will probably move him to a shadier spot to prevent him fading out from the sun.

Now here we are in the second of the ceder fence beds in what I am calling the Leeky-Creole bed.  Here are three of about a dozen Creole tomatoes growing on this plant.  This is my first year with this variety which is touted as being able to set fruit in hot humid weather.  I have only love for this plant - these tomatoes are huge!

Next door to Leeky-Creole is the Big Boy tomato who has some sort of tomato unhappiness going on.  Some of its leaves have died back and the stems look a little purplish as if there is a nutritional issue.  It has plenty of fruit but they are much smaller than the Creole.  Might just be a variety thing, but I swear if this plant pulls a late blight swan dive on me I will yank it from the garden faster than the Border Collie can tear up a new stuffed toy (30 seconds is her new record).  I am already removing the dead leaves as if they are a potential contaminate to my other plants and I use surgical gloves when I handle it in order not to spread any potential gunk.  

It's Bunny!  Lovely BN444 is neck and neck with the Creoles for humongous fruit.  But on a sadder note, Bunny's first fruit went boots up for some unknown reason.  I found it all withered like a tomato raisin on the vine.  No other problems though.  The fruit was so advanced in decay I could not tell what befell it, but I think it must have been some sort of fruit injury.

Here is the other Creole in the Corny-Creole bed.  It also is adorned with bunches of these clusters and barring the descent of tomato poaching insects we should have a great tomato harvest beginning soon.

Here is a representative of the pepper clan from the six plants in the first four beds.  This is a Gypsy variety and all of the peppers are already loaded with fruit.  One more day and we will pick these and many others.  That is one thing for sure about the peppers.  Harvest often or they will get to thinking that their work is done.  We are already in a race against the night time temperatures.  As soon as they climb into the high 70s our peppers will no longer be able to set fruit.

Here are the leeks from the Leeky-Creole bed.  They are a lovely blue-green color which contrasts nicely with the other greens.  Nobody is big enough to harvest yet, but with the rain and warm weather there should be some big stalks coming.

This is the best looking of all six cabbage.  We have had some issues with I guess cabbage worms.  I have found those little guys down in the leaves of the other plants and when I find them I evict them into the dog area.  The resident Border Collie makes quick work of them and then the Westie rolls on them.  A hardy one/two punch in pest control.

Not only is this picture showing you the fence trellis I finally erected today for these burpless hybrid cucumbers, it also is showing you the pathway that I finally finished between the beds.  Okay, I lie, I have only finished five of the between bed pathways and have another four to go.  Okay, another lie - they are not actually finished until I get the ceder mulch for between the stones and the black plastic to put down over the dirt so the damn weeds will stop making my life a constant weed pulling mess.  But other than all of that backbreaking labor to come - I am finished.

Why is it the onion bed always seems to need some sort of makeover.  It did have a hard start with the whole being dug up by opossums in its first few hours as a bed and I also disturbed it by putting in the hay mulch and just recently again by putting in the soaker hose - but still does it have to look so apathetic?  Lift up your fronds (stalks?). Have some pride or something.  Ahh well - as long as it continues to onion it does not have to look pretty.

Collard greens are sort of the emperors among greens.  Unlike turnip or mustard greens, collards have to have a lot of space between each plant.  They are robust and I am sure if they were not tied down by their roots they would be setting off on all sorts of vegetable adventures involving mountains and grizzly bears.  

This started out as just a photo of a sun blasted squash blossom but on further review it revealed one of the bug friends of the garden.  This is an assassin bug and he or she is on the lookout for other bugs.  What you don't see in this photo is the long saber like snout on this thing that it gleefully stabs into other bugs in order to suck out the sweet, sweet bug nectar.  I am very glad they are only about a half an inch long because I shudder to think of having to live in a world if these were Border Collie sized.

Here is a female bloom of the butternut squash.  It will be a couple of days before we know if this fruit set or not.  Meanwhile the rest of the plant is plotting the eventual take over of the entire garden.  I put in six of these into this bed and they are now moving into both beds next to them, the pathways and also eyeing the dog proof fence.  I think butternut squash may be the Kudzu of the squash kingdom.  I will let you know when it has covered our house.

Okay so these pickling cucumbers are looking a little upset and I must admit it is my fault.  They were perfectly happy and beautiful before I went and put in their soaker hose.  This involved me whipping the vines back and forth like some sort of slow vegetable monster rock dance.  I also put in their trellis fence and insisted they use it.  They haven't gotten over it yet.

Stepping out of the ceder fence garden we are met with the promise of things yet to come.  Here is the fig tree displaying three of what will be about a billion figs this year.  The abundant rain is making the fig growth lush and since we didn't trim the tree last year it means I will be doing advanced gymnastics atop the ladder this year in my quest to get my share of the figs from the birds and squirrels.  Stay tuned.

Another up and comer is the Meyer lemon.  This tree is the one I call Lazarus because we found it languishing in a pot that got buried within an enormous hedge of shrimp plant for about two years and was never watered.  Somehow even though it never grew through the pot it managed to survive.  We now have it in a place of honor in the garden and it has shown its thanks by tripling in size.  I always admire the plants I can't kill.  

It is a slow year in okra land, mostly because I decided to start them from saved seeds from last year.  This is Clemson Spinless and it is doing just fine although most are somewhat worm bitten.   No worries they will shake it off and in a couple of weeks they will put out their adult leaves and grow about six inches a day for a while.  This will soon be an okra forest.  On another note, next to this bed I put in about a half dozen Emerald Velvet okra which are supposed to be great.  I now have three of those plants remaining because something was biting the tops off the plants.  Now due to last years okra problems I vowed to blame the dogs for any okra problems this year.  I have done that officially, but just between you and me, it would be a little hard to get a doggie snout past my okra barriers.  I am almost certain this was the work of some little whiskered pest.  Specifically I am talking rodent especially because next to this bed I sprouted some cantaloupe seeds and each morning their tops had been eaten clean off.  I put the seed tray up on a table and yet again the tops were mowed off.  It seems some little critter was ecstatic that I was providing it with an abundant source of fresh sprouts.

Here is the outlier tomato known as Top gun.  He sounds all tough and stuff and I must admit he is sprouting a lot of fruit and has some rather attractive foliage, but just between you and me he doesn't hold a candle to the Creole twins in the ceder fence garden.  But who knows - this guy is supposed to handle the hot weather too, so he might just win the productivity game yet.

Now this plucky little guy is one of several tomato volunteers that applied to be the tomatoes for the Westie this year.  If it looks like it is behind bars that is because it is.  Although these are for the Westie, we must protect them from Big Foot the Border Collie who can make short work of any plant.

This is a view into the grapefruit garden and this is the single yellow squash plant that decided to come up from seed this year.  I do not have high hopes for it because you can almost hear the rumbling of the squash vine borers as they are about to pounce.  Just as soon as this plant sets fruit and that fruit almost gets ripe they will attack and that will be the end of this plant.  So far other than burying the vines I have found no cost effective organic solution to this pest.

Here we have the garden bed name-sake.  This is the first grapefruit that has set this year.  The tree is covered with fruit so far, but it remains to be seen if it will be able to bring any to ripeness.  The tree is still very young, but it is encouraging to see it trying this year.  Last year I don't even recall if it bloomed.

These are bush beans and they are loving life right now.  This year I gave them circular cages like I made for the okra and they are overjoyed.  

Their joy is my joy as is evidenced by the 15 or so incredible beans in my hand.  I had already picked about a dozen of the bush beans earlier this week which makes this enough for the first bean meal this garden season.  Yum.

Here we are at the strictly ornamental bed with the last of the amaryllis that have bloomed this year.  I am not sure of the type because these bulbs were given to me from someone who forces the blooms each year.  I consider all of the amaryllis to be nomadic because every year I move them thinking that this will be the best place for them.  So that is what I am telling them now -  this will be the best place for them...

This is a scented geranium that I managed to grow from cutting taken from one of the wildly abundant tribe growing in the ornamental garden.  These were the only successful ones I managed to grow from about a dozen clippings.  They probably all would have made it if I had managed to water them more.  They also had to survive a couple of freezes.  You need to be tough if you are going to survive in my potted plant area.

Here is a pink Pintas that managed to survive last years horrific drought.  I really love it when a plant not only survives natural disaster but also my on again, off again desire to water it. 

And last but not least, another volunteer, this time a weed.  This is a wild morning glory along with  sorrelvine and snailseed.  What is not to love about April.  Even the weeds try harder.

Garden Equity

It's 12:34 and I have just exited the garden for the first time today.  I will likely be back in it two or three more times today.  This first venture was for just under two hours which is a bit short for my typical time on a Sunday morning.  Usually I am in the garden before 9am and there until close to noon.  As I was pondering my time spent with the greenery, I realized that gardening is much like any business venture.  You must put in a lot of capital prior to gaining any revenue.  In the case of the garden, things like capital and revenue mean different things than in the business world and I decided to break down just what the garden 'expenses' versus 'gains' really is.

Here is what I researched regarding the amount of earth being moved.  For topsoil, it is estimated that each cubic yard will weight 1.2 tons.   For paving stones it is estimated that 2 - 4 inch stones weigh about 1.2 tons per cubic yard.

Here is what I researched regarding caloric expenditures.  For heavy digging (each shovel load weighing over 16 lbs per minute of work) I would expend about 600 calories per hour.  For lighter garden work it is estimated I would expend about 300 calories per hour.  Moving paving stones will be about 600 calories per hour.  Doing routine weeding and planting seeds as well as watering plants I would expend about 115 calories per hour.

Here are some other statistics that will impact the total 'expense' of the garden.

In the ceder fence area there are ten 3 ft by 6 ft garden beds that were completely rebuilt in a way that required the earth to be dug down at least three feet.  Nine of these beds are sided with ceder boards and one of these beds is sided with large rocks.  There are pathways around these beds that are paved with sixty 6 inch by 8 inch concrete paving stones and over 60 bricks.

Cedar Fence garden beds

The center garden bed is a 12 ft by 12 ft space that I completely remodeled which means digging at least three feet in depth and removing a two foot by 12 foot rock pathway.  In this space I now have two 3ft by 6 ft beds sided with large rocks and surrounded by a stone pathway that has over 60 feet of area.

Center Garden south view

Center Garden north view

The grapefruit garden bed consists of two 3 ft by 3 ft beds and a 3 ft by 6 ft beds.  These beds are sided with large rocks and there is a stone pathway two feet by six feet long.

Grapefruit Garden

So, knowing these basic statistic I have come up with the following items regarding each garden bed.

Ceder Garden

Total number of tons of earth moved: (10 beds each at 1 cubic yards of earth moved = 1.2 tons per bed) = 12 tons of earth moved.  Total weight of paving stones and bricks moved = I guestimate about 500 pounds. This puts the grand total of about 12 and a quarter tons moved.

Total amount of caloric expense:  Each garden bed involved 2 hours of heavy digging (1200 calories) and 2 hours of lighter work such as building the wooden frames and light digging and planting (600 calories) and then an hour of moving and setting the paving stones (600 calories) which equals 2400 calories per bed times 10 beds.  Total caloric expense = 24,000 calories.

Center Garden

Total number of tons of earth moved (12 feet by 12 feet completely remodeled comes to 5.3 cubic yards moved = 6.4 tons of earth moved.  Total weight of paving stones moved totaling 2.6 cubic yards = 3.2 tons of paving stones moved.  Add another 600 pounds of rocks used to line the beds and the grand total is about 9.9 tons moved.

Total amount of caloric expense:  The remodeling and building of this area took 10 hours of heavy digging (6000 calories) and 5 hours of moving paving stones (3000 calories) and also 3 hours of light digging and planting (900 calories) for a grand total of : 9900 calories.

Grapefruit Garden

Total number of tons of earth moved (2 cubic yards at 1.2 tons per cubic yard) = 2.4 tons.  A six foot by two foot pathway of paving stones = .5 tons.  Grand total = 2.9 tons.

Total caloric expense:  This bed took 3 hours of heavy digging (1800 calories) and one hour of moving paving stones (600 calories) plus an hour of light digging and planting (300 calories) for a grand total of : 2700 calories.



So, in order to basically reach where I am in the garden zone right now I have moved over 25 tons of earth and I have expended over 36,600 calories.  The time I have spent just getting these beds ready is over 73 hours of actually doing labor.  That does not account for the amount of time I am just dazed and staring at the work that still needs to be accomplished.

Now to fully understand the full impact of the weight we are talking here I thought I would compare it to some images that might help the reader better understand the magnitude of effort we are discussing here.

25 Tons

One sperm whale is about 25 tons.  I have basically moved one of these around my garden (It helps to think of the human in the above picture as a picture of me working in the whale/dirt).

 Or...

... it could be 5 female African elephants that I moved around the garden, one heavy shovelful or heavy rock at a time.

36,000 Calories

Just one of these orders of ten pounds of chicken fried steak along with six pounds of mashed potatoes and a loaf of Texas toast (available at Ft. Worth's Cowtown Diner) will be around 10,000 calories.

Which means I would have to go in for seconds...

...and thirds to get close to the 36,600 calories I have expended on the garden.

Or in a way that is more specific to garden terms...

252 tomatoes, 714 sweet peppers and 252 cucumbers worth of calories.

This is just a small way to calculate the sweat equity I have devoted to this garden.  It does not calculate the time spend in attention and planning.  I have not calculated a monetary expense, but it is rather miniscule when you consider everything I have just calculated did not involve any monetary expense.  We already had the shovels, soil and paving materials on hand.

There is also a wage of exercise paid in order to do this type of intense gardening.  In order to be able to move these tons of earth I have to do strength training.  Gardening is not exercise although it does build strength.  In actuality, you build the strength in order to be safe in your gardening.  If you try to get strong just by gardening alone you may find yourself injured.

The worst thing about this equation is that there is a great chance of failure.  Not only might I do something wrong and screw up the crops, the weather and other forces might conspire to rob me of any gardening profit.

Right now I am going on hope and the basic psychological benefits gained from doing hard labor in something you love.  Will my garden pay me back?  We will have to see.  At least it is keeping me off the streets.

P.S.  I did go back into the garden from 4:30 pm - 8pm after a well appreciated nap...

What to Plant?

There is usually a lull in my gardening about this time of year where I have done my early spring planting and I am starting to consider what to plant for late spring and early summer.  Each year is a little different because around here, the spring to summer transition can be an overnight thing.  We are already consistently in the 80s and although we have had a great year rain-wise so far, last years drought is still lingering on my mind.  Do I skip the late spring and move into summer mode now?

In December I made myself a set of gardening flash cards which list what plants I can plant for the particular month.  I gathered this information from gardening guides specifically for my zone 9a.  Here are the choices for April :

Beans, cantaloupe, collard greens, cucumber, eggplant, mustard, okra, peppers, sweet potato, squash, tomato, turnips and watermelon.

I already have the number of cucumber, peppers and tomatoes that seem reasonable for my garden.  Mind you this hasn't stopped me before in acquiring more.  Some years there are just the incredible plants looking at me from the nursery or feed store and it is exactly like looking at puppies in a pet store.  "Look how cute they are! Oh, I have to take them home with me."

Luckily this kind of conversation happens only in my head - so far.  Suffice it to say that sometimes the plant space requirement needs are not taken into consideration at this time of year.  It isn't entirely my fault.  After all, the baby and juvenile plants look nothing like the gargantuan adult plants they will become.   It just looks like everyone will get along just fine until they are at each others vegetable throats with massive amounts of growth.

It won't be long before I start to find the volunteers.  These are typically cherry tomato plants and they will start to crop up all over the place from now through June.  My plan for these little rascals is to strategically position them around the edges of the garden beds and let them sprawl out so that Farmer Westie can satisfy his gardening urges.

As far as open gardening space I have one six foot by three foot bed and one three foot by three foot bed completely empty.  I also have one bed partly empty that is currently housing my mustard greens, collards and turnips.  There is also a space that could conceivably become three more six foot by three foot beds if I somehow develop super human strength and the weather throws us something other than hot, humid and rainy. 

Here is my basic plan for this weekend:

Okra 

There are a half dozen of Green Velvet okra seedlings waiting to be put into the garden bed.  These guys will supplement the dozen Clemson Spineless already growing in the center garden bed.

Beans

Although there are already a dozen bush bean plants already blooming, I want to plant some more seeds in order to extend the harvest.

Sweet Potato

I don't actually have the sweet potato slips to plant yet, but I am going to suspend a sweet potato in a glass of water and when it sprouts I will use the slips to plant my sweet potato bed.  Either that or I will give up in frustration and purchase some slips like I did last year.

Watermelon

Now we planted cantaloupe last year and had some success, so this year we are thinking of trying watermelon.  This would necessitate finishing out the as of yet unformed garden beds which makes this more of a pipe dream right now.

Eggplant

To eggplant or not eggplant... that is usually the question that plagues me about now.  The first year I tried growing eggplant I had phenomenal success.  Dozens of perfect eggplant on lush and attractive pants. That was both a good thing and a bad thing since every year since then has been less than stellar results with wimpy plants and few fruits.  I kind of resent the eggplant for leading me on like that.

Squash

It would be absolutely wonderful to try out more squash varieties in my garden except for one thing...

... this gal.  She may look cool with her red torso and dashing black wings, but  her offspring create this:

These poor squash plants are wilting because a squash vine borer larvae is eating a cavern into the vine.  These pests can turn a vibrant and prolific squash plant into a wilted mess in just a couple of days time.  Supposedly you can open up the vine and dig the larvae out which I tried last year and indeed the plants stopped wilting.  However, they also were so traumatized they stopped producing fruit as well.  I try to deal with it by planting squash as early as possible and giving up when the borers start doing their thing.  Better living through surrender in this case.

We will just have to see how much of my plan I can get accomplished or if the forces of nature such as rain, mosquitoes, heat and humidity will chase me out of the garden.  Or it could be a nap.  Never underestimate the power of a nap.  Those things can pull you out of a garden plan faster than just about anything.