May 7th, 2011 by Marc Opperman

It may be a little late for such things, so we’ll see. Planted okra and jalapeño transplants this week, as well as bush and vine green bean seeds, sweet corn seed, and summer squash seed. The bush beans are already past seed-leaf stage, while the other stuff seems to be biding its time. In a year with actual rainfall, the lateness might not matter much. But I think the drought may impact my success. We’ll see.

However, to help with all this, I am still letting tap water outgas its chlorine, and I have used parts of a bag of Revitalizer Compost from The Natural Gardener to make two 5-gallon buckets of compost tea. I was inspired to do this because I had potted a passionvine cutting directly in Revitalizer. Every time I went to water the sprout, the water in the saucer below was a rich dark-chocolate color. I could hear my other plants begging for it.

Today I need to strain that into storage jugs so it doesn’t become a haven for the blood squad. Though, a b. thuringiensis dunk would probably help that, and not hurt the compost tea.

A limitation I ran into this year is not having enough open planting space to plant certain crops on time. Basically, I’d love to have the corn where the potatoes are, but the potatoes have yet to vacate the space (but they are seeming close to digging time). The strawberry bed would make a good spot for squash, but they still seem happy…even if my total berry output this year could be measured in the single ounces column.

Notable Arrivals
I’m reading reports of ripe tomatoes all over the Central Texas blogosphere, and my garden is not one to be out-performed in this regard. So far I’ve picked several handfuls of a small cherry tomato (don’t know the variety, but they are about the size of small marbles and VERY sweet.) I’ve also plucked the first two Viva Italias. Basically very much like Romas, these are a paste tomato that should be good for sauces and cooking. Verdict on taste is not in (I had a lot of tasteless tomatoes last year), but they are gorgeous, unblemished and heavy.

Also, we had one blackberry. Jenna reported it to be delicious. She got it since she requested the blackberry brambles back in January. We may get one more ripe berry. This is only notable since one shouldn’t actually get berries on first-year brambles. Berries develop on last-year’s canes.

What Else?
I was supposed to be going to the Wildflower Center’s Gardens on Tour today, but the boy is still sick, and would probably be pretty fussy. Momma and boy are sleeping right now, so plans are up in the air.

beans, compost tea, corn, okra, squash, vegetables

June 10th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

I don’t like posting other people’s photos on my blog (though I’ll link to them), so no photo of the braconid wasp cocoons… until this morning:

Yuck. One shouldn’t look at such things while eating Meyer’s sausage. But on closer inspection, those wasps have flown the coop, and are hopefully hunting for their own hornworms.

On the cheerier side of things, some proto-greenbeans:

I have several small bushes at about the same stage, so in a few weeks I should have a small handful of beans. Yum. Assuming nothing else eats them, of course.

beans, braconid wasp, bugs, garden, hornworm, organic, vegetables

May 8th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Planted last week, the bush beans have sprouted and are 1-2 inches tall. The pillbugs took some nibbles as first the seed leaves and then the actual leaves pushed their way up. I have 5 such groupings, but this one seemed the healthiest. It’s the farthest from the tomatoes, and probably the group with the most space.

Today I placed several other plants around the yard. All of them were rescued by my mother and brought to Austin. There were two blue-eyed grasses, a broadleaf wood oat, a standing winecup (probably Callirhoe leiocarpa), and a gaura, probably Gaura lindheimeri. (It wasn’t marked, but I think it was this one). The grasses made a nice addition to some front beds that get some open shade with sun in the evening, and if they do well, will really finish out that bed nicely.

Speaking of that bed, I completed it late last year and intended to run micro-sprinkler stuff under the soil but didn’t because I lacked the parts. I eventually forgot about it… until a few nights ago. When the sprinkler system clicked round to the front yard, a gusher of water 8 feet long hit the front door. I’d forgotten even to cap off the pipe I left in the bed. Whoops.

And speaking of mom, I made her some really nice business cards for Mother’s Day as I had a chance to put some full-color cards on the big press at work for free. I had to scramble to find her information, calling dad surreptitiously and then designing a card in under half-an-hour. I think the results were pretty good (though this JPG version doesn’t look quite right):

I guess maybe you can see where I come by this plant stuff… chip off the ol’ block.

beans, cards, mom, mother's day