Zone 9 Gardening

Project 43 / Zone 9 Gardening — 2 Comments
30
May 11

A Little Garden Therapy

I spent much of this day dinking around, but I did accomplish a few things. I assembled my new compost bin for my apartment because I want to start improving the soil that’s a part of my back porch. I’d like to have a small shade garden. I’ve discovered my back porch is a very good environment for growing ginger. It also would be nice to have some of the more heat resistant lettuces available to go with all these tomatoes I’ve got coming in.

Yellow Cherry Tomatoes

I also loaded two chairs I needed to take over to Mrs. B’s into the car so they could be transported over. And I cleaned the tub so I could have a proper soak before I go to bed tonight. But probably the biggest thing I did was a little garden therapy. Fortunately early mornings and late afternoons/evenings are great times to be in my garden right now. There’s great breezes coming off the Gulf and there’s always birds flitting around in the evening.

Once I got over to the garden, I got the chairs out of the car and the bird bath I had acquired on the way over in to Mrs. B’s backyard. Then I spent some time hosing down the chairs and finding the right spot for the birdbath. The chosen place (for now anyway) is the hot pepper patch.

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Since it is so dry down right now, I’m hoping that by adding the birdbath to the garden, the birds will be attracted to the water and not my tomatoes. it’s rather disheartening to find a perfectly ripened tomato with a hole pecked into by a bird looking for water.

I spent a couple of hours picking veggies, doing some weeding and then deep watering everything. I’ve got a lot more work to do, but that can wait until later this week.

R. was also busy in the butterfly garden today. He got the water sprinkler set up so that Mrs. B can easily water the bed and fill her birdbath in one fell swoop.

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Now it’s time for bed so I can get up early for work and adventure in the evening with my friend Mary Beth.

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Eating Local / Maybe / NaBloPoMO / Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
22
May 11

Home is such a Good Place

I got home late Friday night and slept until 10ish Saturday. Then I mosied over to the garden to see what a week away had done. And there were tomatoes. Lots and lots of tomatoes.

The tomatoes are coming in!

So I spent a good hour and a half yesterday picking tomatoes and digging up some of the potatoes. And I got myself good and dehydrated, as well as good and overheated. The first sign I had screwed up was when I was driving around and started to get cramps in my feet. And then second sign was when I got the headache that wouldn’t quit. It took 6 doses of aspirin and several glasses of water before I was back to normal. I think it was somewhere around 4 this morning that the headache broke. It’s my own fault for working in the middle of the afternoon after being in a very dry environment.

But at the same time, even though I over did it, I’m happy. I sliced one red and one yellow tomato in the picture above, sprinkled it with a little salt and drizzled a bit of olive oil. Then I put a bit of basil over the top and had them for dinner last night. And I’ll be making lots of fresh salsa and gaucamole over the next few days as I’ve also got hot peppers from the garden as well.

I didn’t hit the garden until later today and it was a bit cooler as well as a little breezy. I got the rest of my potatoes dug as well as pulled all the onions out of the garden. I have free space now and am going to spend the next couple of days getting it ready for beans and squash. I’m getting back into my regularly scheduled groove and I’m loving it.

Eating Local / Maybe / NaBloPoMO / Zone 9 Gardening — 2 Comments
10
May 11

How Does My Garden Grow?

My garden this year is in better condition than my garden last year at this time.

Freshly watered dill
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The hope that someday these lovely babies will be in a jar in my pantry
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And next year, I’m going to try my hand with True Potato seeds since I had several potatos bear aboveground fruit :)
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Green Beans
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First Ripening big Tomato of the year!

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Maybe / NaBloPoMO / Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
3
May 11

Clutter Begone

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. — Henry David Thoreau

In yesterday’s post I mentioned I needed to get rid of clutter. My approach to doing so is to do a little bit every day and when I get one of the recycling bins full, it goes out to the car so it can go to the recycling center, which is conveniently located on the way to Mrs. B’s Place.

Taking this approach does four things. 1) It gets the clutter out of the house. 2) Exiling the clutter as it’s gathered frees up space and makes things a little bit better. 3) I’m opening myself up to new and exciting possibilities by getting myself organized. and 4) I now have an excuse to go check the garden which is something that I need to do more frequently now that things are starting to come in and need to be picked on a more regular basis. It also helps me to ensure that I get a bit more exercise and that the veggies get watered more often. :)

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There are times however, I wish I could utter the words “Clutter begone” and it would just disappear. But my place didn’t get cluttered over night, so it’s not going to get un-cluttered over night.

Eating Local / Project 43 / Take a Picture / Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
6
Mar 11

The Green of Spring

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It is the time of year where the landscape is shifting from brown to the varied hues of green that only come with spring. Spring means renewal and growth. Spring means the world is waking up. Spring means everything is fresh and lovely as the old is replaced by new.

Spring also means working the garden, but it’s a work that I love. Cleaning out overgrown parts of the garden. Scratching through the dirt to break up clumps. Pushing seeds into the ground or sprinkling them over the surface, covering them with a thin layer of soil and gently patting them into the soil. Watering seeds so they come up through the soil covering them so the seedlings can begin the journey to either feed some of the native wildlife or end up on R’s and my plates.

But when the end of the day is near, I love taking a step back and looking at the garden. I love to see how the light plays with the leaves of the plants. I love to watch how the sunlight catches a water droplet on new plant and creates a mini sunburst. Sometimes its a time to rest, but more often than not, I find myself grabbing my camera and trying to capture what I see.

Surprises happen regularly when I shoot with the macro lens. I can’t see everything until I get it home and load it in to my computer. Thats when the stems and capillaries of the plants pop out at me. I notice the litte scallops along the edge of the lettuce plant. The bug I didn’t see when I was trying to get the macro lens to focus says “Hello” on the screen and I notice the details on its head and body. Or I see the flecks of dirt clinging to the lettuce leaf.

And all I want to do is share this wonderful, glorious world and what I find in it.

Image: Photographed in the garden with my Nikon D80 and AF Micro NIKKOR 60 mm lens. ISO 640 F4.0 Shutter speed 1/1600

Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
28
Jan 11

Time for Another Weekend Almost

I’m looking forward to this weekend. I have almost everything done that’s on my list of to dos at work done. It’s going to be a beautifully clear Texas day and I’m going to be gardening this afternoon. SCORE!!!!

All Day Photo Shoot-13Tomorrow I’m going to go hang with my Photography friends for one of semi-annual Silver Screen Exhibits and see which of my pictures got picked to go into the presentation. The picture to the left is one of the images I entered into the exhibit.

Then it’s more gardening to take advantage of the sun while I have it. I’d like to get weeds under control and get garlic in the ground along with a few other things (radishes for one).

I’ll be good and tired by Sunday, which is great timing on my part, because it’s supposed to rain.  So I’ll sleep in a little on Sunday and do some house work and some prep work for Frugal February.

Zone 9 Gardening — 2 Comments
25
Jan 11

Wore out from Gardening

One of the advantages to living on the south side of Houston is that I’m firmly in Zone 9. For you poor people who live north of here, that means I get to garden pretty much all year around.

I haven’t been in my garden this year until this past weekend. After taken a trip to visit the family in Iowa, I came down with a cold and then R.’s mom got a cold and didn’t want anyone around her. Then last weekend, when I had a three day weekend, it rained. So while the plans were to start working on the garden a couple of weekends ago, it just didn’t happen. But that’s okay. I spent a good 3.5 hours Saturday afternoon weeding, harvesting broccoli and cabbage and planting peas (shelling peas YUM!!!!) My reward for all that hard work was an orange straight off of Mrs. B’s juice orange tree. Juice oranges have a rind that’s a little tougher than oranges like Clemintines. I ended up cleaning off the garden knife and chopping the orange into quarters on a fence post.

I ended up grabbing my camera and taking some pictures of said orange when I realized how great the light was from the sunshine.

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I love this picture. You can see the juiciness of orange. And orange color against the background just pop and reminds me of sunshine. We need more sunshine. It’s been a rainy dreary day here today.

Eating Local / Project 43 / Take a Picture / Zone 9 Gardening — 1 Comment
5
Sep 10

The Art of Vegetable Gardening

Over the past two years, I’ve fallen in love with vegetable gardening. It’s a great way to destress after a day of work. I save money on my food budget. It’s fun to cook or can what you grow. And it’s even more fun to share what you grow with people.

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Getting a few goodies from last summer's harvest ready for some friends of mine.

The last few weeks have not been kind to the garden overall due to the high temps. Most of the vines withered due to the heat. Luffa sponge vines and sweet potato vines are thriving despite my ignoring them along the weeds that were blossoming. Currently I have luffa vines sprawling all over the place and the sweet potato vines have taken over their plot.

With the break in the temperatures and the long weekend, I decided to work on the garden. I went to the store this afternoon to pick up the plants for my fall garden and some soil for my cold plants (broccoli, spinach, and lettuce) which I will start from seed. When I got over to Mrs B’s, I was overwhelmed at first, but slowly I found my rhythm. Frustration melted away as piles of weeds grew. Locked up muscles loosened as I prepared the ground. And stress melted away as I moved my fingers through the dirt, transplanting what I purchased. There is more work to do tomorrow.

And while this summer hasn’t been as bountiful as I expected. I look forward to the fall and the early morning light that lets me peek into the world of plants, take pictures of the stunning beauty of nature and share it with you all.

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Project 43 / Take a Picture / Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
1
Aug 10

Bees and Toads

I recently bought a new lens for macro work. I’ve been playing with it and enjoying the capability of getting close to the items I’m shooting. Today I took the lens in the garden with me. It was a beautiful, hot Texas summer day. That means the bees were buzzing around the in the flowers.

And then R found this little dude trying to keep cool by hiding in a hole in the ground. I love the color of his little toad eyes.

All in all, not a bad day of photography.

Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
13
Mar 10

Moving

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Strawberry Jar

The last 6 months seem to have drug on forever because the winter weather was nasty this year. Lots of dreary rainy days. Cold. Even some snow. It seemed like I didn’t have enough energy to get outside and do anything so I spent a lot of time sitting.

The sun has come out finally and everything is starting to green up. It’s time to start gardening.

Lettuce Planter

Lettuce Planter

I’ve been working on container gardens here at the house over the course of the last week. The first project was a strawberry jar. I’ve heard of these before, but I never considered until watching Sean Conway put one together on Cultivating Life. I always thought they’d be harder than they’ve proven to be. I got all my supplies at Houston Garden Center because right now they are running a great deal on Strawberries (99 cents) and a two gallon strawberry jar. I spent just under $40 total on this project.

I’ve also picked up some planter boxes for growing veggies. I’ve got one sitting outside with various types of lettuce in it. I’m going to add others that have beans, peas, carrots etc. I’ve also planted two pots with a jalepeno and tomato plants in them.

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Onion Patch after cleaning. There's a lot of work to do in my little garden.

I spent three hours yesterday afternoon working on the garden over at Mrs. B’s. I weeded the cabbage patch, the onion patch and dug half of the carrot patch. I also planted some purple cabbage in place of the broccoli and cauliflower I pulled because they just weren’t doing well. Although after doing some reading this morning, I’m beginning to think the soil where I planted them is too alkaline.

And because today is going to another bright, beautiful and sunny Texas day, I’m going to take advantage of it and do more work in the garden.

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