Sweet Potato Harvest, and State o' the Garden

Raised bed showing sweet potato leaves & vines.

We've had one unexpected dip to 32℉, and Nervous Nelly here didn't know if the sweet potatoes were okay. The sweet potatoes were originally planted in April this year from a spud that was sprouting on the kitchen counter. Next time, I'll feel more confident to leave them in until temps are in the mid- to upper-30's consistently. Sweet potatoes aren't an item grown much around these parts, but I figured they'd be perfect in a raised bed, as long as the soil was kept moist. The raised beds did an excellent job.

Yay, sweet potatoes!

The two halves of potato sent out lots of runners and leaves, taking over almost the entire bed, although the harvestable tubers stayed close to the original "seed" spud. All-together, I'd estimate a bit more than five pounds of sweet potatoes were harvested. About a third were as wide as my fist: not huge, but not bad either. The smaller ones, once cured, could probably be cooked all at once and made into a nice mash. Anyhow, had to be very careful digging up the spuds as the skins are very delicate before curing. Found only two grubs during the dig, and the chickens were happy to dispatch.

Flopsy, hoping for yet another grub.

It's a bit too cold to "cure" the spuds outside now, so I laid them out to dry off a bit on a screen, then put them into perforated bulk lettuce bags I had planned to take to the plastic bag recycling station at the grocery store. [Read all about curing sweet potatoes on this site.] The warmest room in the house is where the gas water-heater resides, so I rigged up some wire shelving with wet towels so the spuds get enough warm-air circulation as well as humidity. Sweet potatoes really are best suited for growing in hotter climates, but am hoping I can work out a system to grow more (and earlier) next Spring - maybe do some research to see if there are others that are especially suited for this zone/climate. [Michelle of Blessed Acre Farm blog writes in the comments below that sweet potatoes are grown in zone 5b in MA, so there's a wider variety than I originally assumed!] Thinking perhaps using some perforated black plastic over the soil where the spuds will grow for heat,  and maybe some recycled soda bottles with the tops cut off, over the top, for frost protection.

In other garden news:

Harvested beans (dried on the vine).

The organic Anasazi beans that I planted from a bag bought from the grocery store? I harvested them today. It's not going to be much of a harvest, as I only sprouted a couple, and left them on the vine until crispy dry. It was mostly an experiment to see how viable things like organic beans from a grocery store can be for growing new plants. It looks like as long as the beans haven't been irradiated or otherwise processed, it can be done!

The hardy cherry tomatoes

The monster cherry-tomato plant, found growing in the compost pile and transferred to a raised bed, is STILL going strong. Spouse is anxious to save seed from this freakishly hardy tomato, and I agree - it's a keeper. Oddly enough, some of the other tomatoes that didn't fruit much at all over the Summer are now putting out some nice looking fruit. I don't know if they'll have time to ripen before the next cold wave hits, but I'll keep them going for as long as I can. The ones in containers will be transferred to the Winter greenhouse to see if they can stay healthy & keep ripening/fruiting. The Matt's Sweet Cherry tomatoes, tho' prolific, won't be planted again. Spouse and I are both too impatient to harvest these tiny little gems.

The tiny Matt's Cherry. That's my
fingertip you see next to the fruit.

Speaking of the Winter greenhouse... it's frame was repurposed over the Summer to hold an extra-large kiddie pool, with ramps for the geese & ducks to climb and an experimental water filter. The filter was a success, keeping the water clean for days on end as long as we kept the pump filter cleared (and no ducks laid an egg while swimming). Unfortunately for the birds, I do need the greenhouse back, so the pool structure will probably be taken down once it looks like overnight temperatures are going to stay in the 30's.

Until then, it's temps continuing to remain 5-7° higher than normal, with days in the mid-80's and nights in the upper-50's to low-60's. A quote that seems apropos:

"Choosing shorts or long underwear on a particular day is about weather; the ratio of shorts to long underwear in the drawer is about climate." Charles Wohlforth, The Whale and the Supercomputer.

Paste, Slicers, Cherry and 'Mystery'

Once I decided to get serious about our garden for the upcoming season, I pulled out the cardboard box that stores all our packets of seeds and reviewed what we had. We had an amazing variety, and some duplicates (but from different seed companies). What I started from seed this year:

• San Marzano, a paste tomato
• Costoluto Genovese, another paste tomato
• "Dirty Girl", a small slicer from saved seed
• Matt's Cherry, a cherry tomato
• Big Red, a slicer
• Dona F1 hybrid, and...
• Mystery 'Mater

The San Marzano paste tomato makes excellent pasta sauces. We had seeds from three different seed vendors. I planted a few from each vendor, and have ended up with far too many seedlings this season. I'm hoping to find homes for all the plants that did not get planted.

I've never tasted (or even seen) the Costoluto Genovese, another paste tomato. An experiment!

The "Dirty Girl" tomato is one I've only seen at a local mega-organic store, and for only two years. I've not seen it since. The second year is when Spouse urged me to save some of the seed, and I'm glad I did. Of course, this particular tomato could be a hybrid and not set true to it's previous fruit (it's small and sweet like a Campari tomato). We'll see how it goes. Hopefully the plant patent police won't come knocking on my door to drag me away for infringement...

I've never grown a Matt's Cherry or a Big Red tomato, but everyone needs at least one cherry and one beefsteak-style tomato in their garden, right?

The Dona F1 tomatoes were grown by a local horticulturalist from seeds that I'm not at liberty to say how they were obtained *ahem*. There's some strange dust-up about the Dona F1, that the F1 was discontinued, but is now being re-issued, but is it really the F1 or is it an F2?, and oh you can't get F1 in the States, what you're actually getting is the F2, and on, and on, and on. I don't even know if it's a good tomato, but I was given two plants for free, so will see how this one works in our climate. It might just keel over at the first heat wave.

Last but not least, is the Mystery 'Mater. It was from a packet of seeds marked "Tomato", with further info that it was heirloom/open-pollinated, but nothing more. It could be a slicer, a paste, a cherry, or who knows what.

What I forgot to start this year: yellow tomatoes. I'm surprised that I had no seeds for them, cherry, pear or slicer! I love the sweetness and low acidity of yellow tomatoes, but ah well. I think we've plenty of others to keep my Summer tomato addiction sated for the season.

It's Spring 2012 and All I Got Was a Frozen Shoulder

Pic: almond blossoms

Spring has come early this year, along with a case of "frozen shoulder" for myself. It has made working on the property a challenge. Never fear, determination (sometimes also expressed as "stupidity") is my strong suit, so I will do everything I can to work around the issue and get this place in shape. On the agenda...

1. Permaculture: had a consultant come out and look over the land. At first glance, looks like we're gonna need to truck in a couple tons of soil, and rent big equipment to move it into berms and swales. Living on the side of a hill often means that rainwater runs off before soaking in, so berms & swales will help hold and retain more moisture for our orchard and pasture needs. He's drawing up some plans, and I'm looking forward to further ideas on what we can do here.

2. Pasture development: since finances will dictate when & how much soil we can move around, it may be a few months or more before we can develop those berms & swales. In the meantime, this Spring the orchard areas will be developed to grow pasture grasses, despite the strong possibility that it will all get torn up & re-arranged later. It will involve raking back the bulkier layers of cedar mulch, spraying the ground with a soil "activator", then fertilizing, then planting a grazing mix of grasses (mostly pasture bermuda with a handful of other grasses). Over the Winter the poultry and waterfowl have kept the front & side grasses clipped/eaten golf-course short, and we need to expand, like, NOW.

pic: needs more logs, seriously

3. Raised 4x4 Terraced Garden Beds: I've two beds ready to go, and am filling the bottom & deeper parts with old log pieces in a small-scale hugulkultur experiment. It'll be great if the experiment helps the beds to retain more moisture, which is always a challenge during the dry months. If all else fails, it will take up some of the space that would normally be filled with soil, saving us on soil/compost fill needs. I also need to get the remaining beds built, as we've got...

Pic: Tomatoes. Lots of 'em.

4. Tomato seedlings: a boatload of 'em. 57 to be exact. Many to be given away, I'm sure. A small handful of tomatillo, and the rest a combination of open-pollinated paste, slicing, and cherry tomatoes. There's some from saved seed, some from seed catalogs, and two from a local shop that is a looong story, but the seeds are from a once-thought-abandoned line of tomatoes. We'll see how well they do here.

5. Gathering Native Cuttings: a former co-worker and friend has a humungous female native mulberry from which she's generously allowing me to take cuttings this year. The native mustang grapes are also starting to bud, which means I need to hit the backroads and get some cuttings from the roadside fences. Both provide fruit which will be a welcome addition to our poultry forage needs, and for human consumption as well.

6. Get That @#$!! Rainwater Collection Installed on the Coop! *sigh*... self explanatory.

Stopgap Erosion Control

Summer lasted way too long, with sustained record-setting heat killing off all the grasses around the house. As we were in a drought anyways, watering seemed not only wasteful but useless to boot. The only survivors were a few tough weeds and wild salvias, which I refuse to dig up out of respect for their will to live. Bonus: they're still green! Anyhow, Fall has finally arrived, bringing cooler temperatures and (we hope!) seasonal rains. Now's the time to plant cool season grasses and nitrogen-fixing legumes and grains, especially before the seasonal rains start in earnest, else our downhill neighbor will receive even more of our soil...

Pic: Ducks at the buffet.

First planting test was around the young orchard trees. Grasses can be nutrient hogs, but the trees are close to going dormant for the season anyways, and the need for erosion control is paramount at this point. Rye grass was planted in a circumference around the base of the trees, then covered with old rotted/manured bedding hay. [I smelled reeeally special after spreading that stuff around.] The first week the areas received spot watering to keep the soil moist for germination. Then the trees received their usual scheduled watering - recycled duck/goose pool water - about every 5-7 days in rotation. The grass continued to grow, and is doing fine. The trees all have a wide circumference, short height wire fence around their bases to keep the geese from chewing on their trunks, but am now opening one tree-fence at a time to let the poultry & waterfowl graze.

Pic: Geese take a turn at the buffet table.

Next test: fenced off & seeded a 6' x 12' section of upper "lawn" with a combination of rye grass and bermuda. The bermuda grass is a warm weather grass, but it was leftover from previous plantings, so tossed it in with the rye seeds. Soil temperatures should sprout both. Recycled a rotted bale of hay, loosely covering over the seeds so the still-warm sun wouldn't fry their sprouting efforts. In two weeks time, there was a lovely patch of green. This patch should anchor the soil, and hopefully stop any runoff from sections that don't have grass yet. I'll only open the grassy area every other day or so, lest the birds eat the grass to the bare soil. They do receive regular greens - I feed them heads of romaine or other lettuces every morning - but it's not the same as grazing grasses on their own.

Pic: Now some of the chickens get their feed on. OMG, BUFFET!!!!

Yesterday I fenced off an 8' x 12' section (overlapping a small part of the original 6' x 12'), and have seeded it not only with annual rye grass, but with cereal rye, leftover bermuda, leftover native grasses, and a trio of clovers. Kitchen sink planting! Clover doesn't do well here in the summer - too hot & dry - but it just might be okay as a cool season annual.  I overseeded the rye grass by comparison to everything else, as that's the one thing most likely to sprout at this time. Plus, rye grass seed is cheap. The native grass seeds will hang out just fine until Spring.

Today I am working on seeding the slope in front of the house. Raked out the majority of the rocks and dead thatch, and am getting ready to fence off and start seeding once I finish typing this entry. [If I finish typing this entry. Strangely, my arms are kinda tired!] Come Spring 2012, will seed all these areas again for the warm season with bermuda, buffalo grass, and as much native seed as we can afford. What the heck, let's throw in some wildflower seeds too, I think there's some leftovers in the back closet...

Potato Tower Update - July

I've been helping out at the Bountiful Sprout co-op this month, filling in for the gracious Cindy while she takes a well-deserved vacation. I noticed that several of the farmers were selling fresh potatoes, and it got me to wondering, are mine finally ready for harvest?

The tops have taken a beating with the sudden & continued onslaught of heat this season, but keep re-greening. Despite the remaining green, figured I'd go ahead and check out at least one tower. If the contents looked good, I'd harvest the rest.

The growing medium - nothing but pure compost - has done some settling, like a box of cereal or bag of chips. It was easy to dig through with my bare hands (like I'd take the time to find gloves anyways, right?). Besides, using hands to harvest the tubers would be much gentler on the potatoes - much less chance of nicking or gouging the tender 'tater - than if I used a garden spade.

The harvest itself? Kinda disappointing. Two large and one small seed potato yielded slightly less than two pounds of potatoes, of which most were very small. Looks like I should have left this tower alone for a few more weeks yet. I'm also wondering if I should have blended some topsoil into the compost. Potatoes can be heavy feeders, but too much nitrogen and not enough phosphorous might have affected tuber development, and I really don't know what the balance is/was in that particular batch of compost. Ah well, two more towers of 'taters await in the wings, and we'll see what the harvest is like for those in a few more weeks.

An enterprising chicken, digging through the remains.

Tree Collards

I first heard of Tree Collards on Growing Your Greens, an inspirational food gardening YouTube series. I saw the tall, graceful form and wondered, "hmm, could I grow these here?". The more easy-to-maintain perennial foodstuffs I can grow, the better!

Photo: Tree Collard, credit to Perennial Tree Collards blog.

From the Perennial Tree Collards blog, I found out that Tree Collards are a perennial shrub/tree grown in the sub-tropics & tropical highlands. We might get just a tad too cold here, but I'm hoping if I put it in a protected spot with a South/South-West exposure (or at least protect it from North winds) it just might work here. Folks are growing it all along the Southern US states, and in California as well. I've seen small snippets of back-history to the tree collard - how African Americans in the South passed these on from family to family - but haven't seen any more details yet; will keep researching. I love the stories of how plants travel...

Tree collards don't seem to bolt like other greens, rarely flowering and going to seed. The seeds also don't germinate "true", so any propagation will need to be through cuttings. Found a bit more information on how to grow & maintain tree collards from Richards Farm. I've ordered some cuttings through Bountiful Gardens (along with some Kakai pumpkins that make hull-less seeds), and look forward to trying these out.

Volunteers in the Compost Pile

Last Fall, the chicken ladies got a nice treat: pumpkin and squash meats and seeds, which had the bonus of costing not a red cent as they were "old" Fall decorations being thrown away at the feed store. Not everything was hoovered up by the ladies, however, and what was left over was pitched into the compost pile.

Fast forward to Spring. We now have several squash and pumpkin volunteer vines in the compost pile. Not sure what we're gonna harvest come Fall: will it be Blue Hubbard squash? Princess Pumpkins? Pie pumpkins? Kinda nice to have the volunteers, as I still don't have our raised beds finished (mea culpa!), and am scrabbling together a large container garden instead (just got in a bunch of tomatoes & herbs - more on that later).

Besides a growing medium of rich compost, the vines are also getting recycled duck- and goose-pool water. There are a dozens of flowers on the vines at the top of the pile, indicating that if all goes well, we'll have a bountiful supply of Fall and Winter fruits. 

[A moment of solemnity for the other volunteer vine that didn't make it: a sweet potato that had been growing in the second compost pile. The chickens squeezed their way into that particular bin, and ended up tearing out the plant in their hunt for tasty bugs. Our compost bins continue to be locked up like Fort Knox, but never underestimate the determination of a bug-focused chicken.]

'Taters, 'berries, and more...

Here's the latest photograph of the potato towers:

The plants are about busting out of their towers! One thing I'll do differently next time: either find one big piece of cardboard for the liner, or duct-tape (or otherwise attach) the cardboard pieces together before filling. As you can see, the pieces are shifting. I topped out the compost fill at around 18 to 24 inches high. No wonder the leaves and flowers look so lush...

For a bit of perspective, here's Bandit with Billy-Bob and a couple of the ladies...

The strawberries survived the slapdash planting they received (and the above average heat we've been having), and are putting out flowers. Maybe - just maybe - I'll have some June berries!

In other events around the farm, we've planted another apple, two pear, two nectarine, another peach, two cherry, and two almond trees. Left to go: two more cherries, two white mulberries, two elderberry bushes, and two pomegranates. I've also a bunch of blackberry canes (a wonderful trade with Joy, for goose & duck eggs) and grape vines awaiting their support structure to be built (*ahem*). Oh, and some good old-fashioned rugosa roses, for their vitamin-C packed seed hips.

There has been some non-food planting going on as well. I've given up  trying to get healthy blackberries and grapes to grow in the southwest-facing garden beds in front of the house. The garden beds abut a three-foot high concrete foundation (the house is on the side of a hill), and it gets too danged hot in the Summer. I'll leave the current scraggly vines and canes in place for now, but in the meantime have planted another variegated privet (to match the mature one on the other side of the steps), two "Sangria" esperanzas, and will put in some "Dallas Red" lantana flowers under the esperanzas - all perennials, and all adapted or native to this area. On the northwest side of the house, the Japanese barberry bushes just couldn't cut the combination of Winter's bite and the constant nagging at their roots by the chickens, so I've planted a couple of Texas Sage bushes in their place to match the single Texas Sage in the same garden bed. The dang thing is bullet-proof - geese, dogs or chickens, nothing bothers it.

Whew!

Another Potato Tower Update - Plus Container Strawberry Goodness

These photos were taken on March 31st, and the potato greens are now a good couple inches above the tower tops! I ran out of home-made compost, and had to buy a couple bags to continue filling the towers. Not sure if I'll do a pure compost potato tower next year. I realize potatoes can be heavy feeders, but thinking maybe a half-and-half mix of good soil & compost might do just as well.

Miracles upon miracles, the chickens have stayed out of the towers so far, and the geese have not destroyed the potato leaves.

I also (finally!) received the order of low-chill cherry and white mulberry trees. I'll write more about those later, but with that order came 50 (yes, 50!) FREE bare-root strawberry plants, which I had totally forgotten about. Eep! The raised beds hadn't been filled with the custom soil mix yet, and I needed to get those strawberries planted ASAP. I grabbed a bunch of three- and five-gallon recycled plastic plant pots, filled them with a robust potting soil, and covered with well rotted (and poo'd upon) straw and hay for insulation and moisture retention. Good thing the straw was there, as we had an unexpected freeze just a few days ago. The berries (and potatoes) survived just fine, probably with a radiant-heat assist from the slope they're on, which faces southwest. The last average freeze here is March 15th, but some veggie gardeners won't put anything into the ground until after Easter.

In the picture below, about two-thirds of the strawberries are potted - there's even more pots on the ground now. The wooden boards you see below the pots are to keep the pots level for watering. The three-gallon pots have three strawberry plants in each, and the five-gallon have four or five plants each. I don't even know what kinds of strawberries these are; I'm guessing annuals of some sort.

This is the first time I've planted strawberries, and doing so in containers is another grand experiment. Hoping this works out - it would be so lovely to have fresh berries for eating and jam this year, and right from my own back yard!

New Project - Wire Potato Towers and Compost Scratching

I went 'round and 'round trying to decide which to do: potato buckets, or potato towers? As the soil here in the Hill Country is not amenable to growing potatoes in the traditional manner - heck, you need actual SOIL for that - settled on growing potatoes in buckets (seemed easier all around). Other projects came along, taking away the buckets I wanted to use. Rather than buy more buckets, decided to make do with the materials I had on-hand and create chicken wire mini potato towers instead.

Photo: potato towers, and ducks. Ducks!

Photo: tower contents

The mini-towers are about two feet wide, and stand about 30" tall. Used some old chicken wire for the form. Lined the interior with recycled cardboard so the hens can't peck out the contents as easily. The cardboard will also help keep the soil cooler and hold in moisture better - a big consideration 'round here, especially as we're already experiencing days in the mid 70's ℉. Also added an extra layer of straw around the sides, and filled each tower part-way with nothing but pure compost (and a bit of straw to "lighten" the mix). Not all folks have luck using straw - someone (I forget who - what do they say is the first thing to "go" when you get older?) mentioned that using straw led to more problems with disease in her spuds. I'll be keeping a close eye during the growing season.

Photo: Cinnamon, proving my point.

Growing the spuds: according to different web sites, what you do is plant a seed potato, sprouting-side up, into the compost (or soil mix). As the potato puts forth a stalk & leaves, begin mounding up soil/compost to the bottom of the leaf structure. Keep mounding up as the potato stalk/leaves grow taller, and keep the soil moist! The potato will then send out more root shoots through the stalk which will then become tubers through the now soil-covered stalk. I'll add another lining of cardboard to the mini-tower once the soil level gets higher.

I'll be planting the spuds this Sunday after work, as that's when the Farmer's Almanac claims is a fortuitous time for spud-planting. Call me superstitious, but gardening can be such a crap-shoot that I'll take all the advantages - real or imagined - that I can get!

Photo: the girls getting serious about their job.

Speaking of compost: the hen ladies were quite helpful in getting the compost ready to use in the potato towers. I cleared out one of the pallet bins of ready-to-go compost, shovelling loads into old/damaged kiddie pools we've hung onto. The hens then scratched through the compost in the pools, digging out bugs, eating seeds or any wild shoots, and breaking up mix. Got the idea from Redneck Mother, a Texas gardener who is no longer blogging (bummer) else I'd link her brilliant idea. For her compost "sifting" container, she used those low/wide underbed plastic clothes bins you can get inexpensively at a dollar store. The kiddie pool method seems to work best (and most frugally) for us: our ducks & geese (and dogs) use the pools until they bust, then we use the busted pools for other projects later on. Bonus: the pools are highly UV-resistant, and won't break down after a summer in the sun. Win!

Photo: The girls finishing the job in the compost bin.

Tomato Surprise!

Ugly plants don't sell, and that's a fact of life at a garden nursery. Some of the plants with the shortest beauty & shelf-life are vegetables, especially tomatoes. Tomatoes grow fast and gangly real quick, and when they're just too far gone to re-pot them, management directs us to toss 'em or take 'em home. Although I already had about a dozen tomatoes planted, I went ahead and volunteered to take a  half-flat of tomatoes a few weeks back. Hey, they were free!

The tomato plants sat on a back porch rail, and were buffetted by rain and wind, knocked off the railing, and taste-tested by the geese a few times before I had time to get them planted. At that point, all the markers denoting what kinds of tomatoes I had were long gone. I think the new plants are Green Zebras, Celebrity, Better Boy, and Yellow Brandywine, but I'm not positive. So come July, we'll just have a nice big pile of "Tomato Surprise!"

[pic: our first harvest - Early Girl, Roma, VF San Marzano, and Yellow Pear tomatoes]

P.S. Did you know? Take a gangly tomato plant, snip off its lower leaves, and plant it deeply into the soil to where not only are the roots in the soil, but the stem and covering the snipped off lower leaves as well. Doing so, the plant will then develop new roots where the bottom leaves were snipped off, and be even stronger for the growth of a deeper root system.  Learned that from one of the horticulture staff. Pretty cool tip!

Bugs That Go Crunch in the Night

Here's a quick lesson in gardening: always watch your cabbages, broccolis and other tasty greens, else they'll end up looking as skeletal as mine do in this pic. Once again, I'm happy to be here as an example of what not to do. You're welcome!

Seriously, however, you can control those brassica-eating worms and no-see-'ems with an organically approved Bt or a spinosad-based spray. If you look closely at the picture (or click to enlarge), you can see the plant is starting to recover with new leaves in the middle, four days after the original treatment. I went ahead and planted additional broccoli, cabbage, collards and other greens alongside the recovering plants, just in case the original plants don't make it. And if they do survive? Well shucks, I'll just have to think of something to do with all those tasty greens!

Misshapen Bushes

Let my efforts be an example of what NOT to do:



[Sorry this took so long to post. As usual, so much to do, and so little tequila to support the effort.]

Mistake?

Uhh, I may have done something really stupid. In my haste to get the property quasi-cleaned up for a visitor, I trimmed our Texas Sage bushes... in the dark.

Okay, okay, I did have the outside lights on, but I'm now thinking that trimming at night might have been a mistake. Still, the bushes were growing so lopsided. Plus with the recent rains softening up the ground, they were all leaning at different angles, and covering up the view from the windows as well. (Dwarf Texas Sages, these are NOT. "Estimated three to five feet tall", puh-lease!).

Spouse and I have been trying to play catch up since the Summer of H3ll on Earth, and I've been carving out time where I can: between rain storms, or before/after work. Sometimes that means the only time I may have is after sunset. Anyhow, I'll post pics of what was done tomorrow - success or failure - when there's light enough to snap a photo. Perhaps that would be a good rule to keep in mind: only shape plants when there's enough light for photographs?

In other news, I've received permission to bring in my good camera to take photos at the plant nursery, and also to post here on the blog. I see some amazing things at work that would be lovely to share.

[pic: Butterfly on Plumbago flowers, taken at the nursery with cell phone camera]

New Fruits

Of all the goji plants, I never expected this particular one to fruit; especially in the first year. It resides in a particularly hot & sunny area, and was looking pretty sad the first six weeks or so after transplant. Lo & behold the fruit! I'm now watching closely to see at what point the berries are "ripe" versus "overripe", so I know when to pick.

Another plant that I didn't expect to fruit: the lone fig still in the rooting bucket. We planted two figs in the garden last year, and although they're growing like gangbusters, there's still no fruit. But the little bucketed one has three figs popping out. Go figure.

[click the pics for bigger view]

Water-Saving Garden Technique: Using Ollas

"What's an olla?" An olla (pronounced "oy-yah") is a terra-cotta bottle or pumpkin shaped pot. Ollas used for watering are buried neck-deep into soil, and then filled with water and capped. Plants near the olla will soak up the water that the terra cotta releases slowly. Gardening with ollas saves water, and plants love the slow, constant soaking at their roots. Ollas were brought to the U.S. Southwest by Spanish settlers, and the locals took up the practice of watering with ollas as well.

As drought conditions worsen in some parts of the U.S. (including where we live), watering with ollas would be a good way to help conserve this precious resource. If I can't afford to purchase them outright, I plan to try making my own for the garden beds this Fall.

Articles on how to use ollas:
Santa Fe Master Gardeners Assoc.
East Central Ministries
Urban Homestead
Continental Drift
Pakkisan

Buy (or make your own) ollas:
East Central Ministries
Peddlers Wagon
NeoGardens
Dave's Garden (make your own)
Santa Fe Master Gardeners Assoc. (make your own)

[Picture from Peddlers Wagon, which is a garden shop run by the good people at Urban Homestead]

Garden Beds Update

Of all the cane fruit planted, it looks like the Brazos thorny blackberries are the ones that are thriving best at the moment. I didn't realize there were second year canes on the plants, so it looks like we may even get a few berries this summer! The thornless blackberries (hmm, no name on the tag) look like they haven't made up their minds to stay or go. The Latham raspberries are just now poking a few green buds out of their branches; perhaps they're finally getting over the trauma of the dogs eating one of their sisters.

Once the New Moon comes 'round, it will be time to plant the new arrivals. We have goji berries (actually, Chinese wolfberries instead of Tibetan, but same plant), hops rhizomes, two small bay laurels (will be put into pots) and at least one passionfruit. The second passionfruit fell victim to the dogs as well. Were they after the plant this time? No, just the plastic pot. Sh*theads.

Tomorrow I'll head over to a local nursery and pick up two trumpet vines whose color just grabbed me by the heart. I'll plant them on the posts next to the patio steps - after I make sure that the leaves aren't poisonous to the geese and chickens. Hummingbirds love these flowers, and it would be great fun to watch them. Even nicer not to have to fill hummingbird feeders. Okay, so we humans in the household can't eat these flowers, but not everything has to be utilitarian, eh?

Having a "honey do" day on this first day of Spring: fixing leaky faucet, repairing wooden stool, gluing back together teapot lid. Hoping that blast of cold weather last week was the final shivery front of the season. Happy Equinox!

[Dog pic: Sh*thead #1, aka Bandit, and one of the reasons we have chicken wire and fencing around the soon-to-be planted plants.]