Today's Harvest: First Zucchini and Peppers

The first zucchini (Black Beauty) and pepper (Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno) this year have been harvested from the garden!  I also picked another Pic-N-Pic yellow summer squash.  The first Pic-N-Pic squash I harvested a couple weeks ago had a very tough skin that I couldn't eat.  It looks like this second one will be more edible, but I'll just have to wait and see after I cook it up!

Harvest Totals (since April)

• 5 lbs Cherry Bell Radishes
• 3 lbs Giant Fordhook Swiss Chard
• 1 lb 0.1 oz Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash (2 squash)
• 8.8 oz Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas
• 15 oz Black Beauty Zucchini (1 squash)
• 1.0 oz Mucho Nacho Jumbo Jalapeno

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - May 2014

Welcome to what's blooming in my garden right now in Round Rock, Texas, hardiness zone 8a.  Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting GBBD!

BACKYARD:

The zinnias are really going strong.  I love planting zinnias and marigolds on the corners of my veggie beds to attract pollinators.  They also really add a pop of color.

The milkweed has produced extra blooms, but no sign of any butterflies, yet.

The butterfly seed mix that I planted this spring is starting to blossom.  The orange cosmos are especially doing well.

The various squash plants are putting out quite a few blossoms.  Whenever I see some female flowers, I always try to do some pollinating by hand, just in case the bees haven't gotten around to it.  I want to maximize my harvest before any squash vine borers take over.

COURTYARD:

Plumbago

I really love the deep purple leaves of the oxalis combined with their delicate white flowers.

FRONT YARD:

Skull Cap

Autumn Sage

Wind Damage Follow Up

We ended up hiring some tree experts to cut up and haul away the tree that had fallen during the strong storms last week.  Not only did they haul away the fallen part of the tree, but they cut down the remaining 2/3 of the tree that was still standing because it was rotten enough on the inside and needed to be removed before the rest fell in another wind storm.

Before:

After:

It is always sad to lose a tree, especially one that has been growing since the house was first built in 1981.  But, it means there is an opportunity to plant something new.  I'm thinking I might plant one, or maybe a couple fruit trees in its place.  I already have a Florida Prince peach and a fig tree and I'm considering planting a pomegranate tree here.  What do you think?  Do you have any thoughts on what fruit tree I should plant in my Central Texas garden?

Wind Damage

Storms blew into Round Rock on Thursday night, bringing some much needed rainfall to the dried-out landscape.  However, it also brought some strong winds (26mph with gusts of 40mph).  The wind was so strong that it caused a very large branch (about 1/3 of the tree) to break off of our backyard tree.  The section of the tree that snapped off fell onto our fence and into the neighbor's backyard.  The tree is obviously very heavy and fell with some force, because it caused some major damage to the iron fence.  Thankfully no people or pets were hurt.

Taking a closer look revealed that the tree probably already had some rot, which made it especially vulnerable to the strong winds.  

Jon will have his work cut out for him this week in sawing up the fallen tree and hauling it out of the neighbors yard.  We'll then need to replace a section or two of the iron fencing.  Oh, the joys of being a homeowner!

Today's Harvest: First Peas and Squash

Today in the garden I harvested the first peas and squash of the season - Guisante Mammoth Melting Sugar peas and Calabacin Pic-N-Pic Hybrid to be exact.

The great thing about having a vegetable garden is that as soon as you pick the veggies, they can go directly into a delicious home-cooked meal.  Tonight I made a delicious chicken stir fry with today's veggies (which I slightly altered to use the vegetables I had on hand, and egg noodles instead of rice).  The peas were flavorful and tender.  Being summer squash, I left the rind on the squash when I cooked it, thinking it would be soft.  It was not.  I'm hoping the rest of the crop will be softer, otherwise it will be a difficult squash variety to cook with and I probably won't plant it again if it takes a lot of prep work in the kitchen.

Harvest Totals (since April)

• 5 lbs Cherry Bell Radishes
• 3 lbs Giant Fordhook Swiss Chard
• 5.7 oz Pic-N-Pic Summer Squash
• 2.3 oz Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas

End of Month View - April 2014

I've decided to join the garden blogging community in posting my first "End of the Month" view of garden. This will allow me to see the progress I'm making in different parts of the garden over time.

Veggie Beds

The spring veggie beds are starting out strong, despite the several late freezes that we've had here in central Texas.  In Bed 1 (furthest left), I have 6 tomato plants, 9 pepper plants, and 3 eggplants.  In Bed 2 I have a variety of summer and winter squash (acorn, butternut, yellow summer, zucchini, pumpkin and gourds).  I also planted radishes between the mounds.  I've harvest all but a few of the radishes, and had to give away about half of my harvest because I just couldn't eat all of them!  In Bed 3 I have sweet peas growing.  I just harvested the last of my fall/winter crop of kale and planted okra, cucumbers, watermelon and cantaloupe in the open spaces in the bed.  Finally in Bed 4, which receives mostly shade during the day has swiss chard, spinach, kale, collards and bush beans.  The swiss chard is still producing from the fall/winter crop.  The rest of the plants are from spring planting.

 

Bed #2 with squash and a few radishes and Bed #3 with sweet peas and marigolds.

Backyard Beds



The bulb bed doesn't have much but the calla lilies blooming right now.  I have many gladiolas that are getting ready for their summer showing, as well as some daylilies, a few Black-Eyed Susans, and a couple of dahlias.  I only seem to have two dahlias that came up this year, so I think it may be time to plant a few more varieties.

The butterfly garden is full of some purple zinnias that were grown from seeds, a scattering of butterfly wildflowers that have not yet bloomed, some milkweed, coneflower, mistflower, and a couple sunflowers from fallen birdseed.  The rosebush is also maxed out in blooms.

Courtyard

My large wisteria that has not yet bloomed in 2 years.  I probably need to do more pruning and alter the soil so it isn't too heavy on the nitrogen.  I've also read that it can take several years for the plant to bloom. I must be patient.

Front Yard

While I've already posted these pictures in my Front Yard Landscaping post, I decided to add them again here to keep track of how much this part of the garden will change as the months grow by.

Thanks to Helen at The Patient Gardener for hosting the End of Month View.  Stop on by her blog to see other gardeners' end of the month garden views.

Front Yard Landscaping

Pathetic.  That's what our front yard looked like for about the last couple of years.  It wasn't due to a lack of trying.  Believe me, we certainly tried...twice.  There wasn't much landscaping in the front yard to begin with when we moved in almost three years ago.  There were two beds right in front of the house with some puny shrubs.  Our first spring in the house, I added a bunch of plants to the front beds, along with a section of plants and bulbs under a tree, and plenty of mulch.  While the beds started off decent looking, it was hideous by the end of the summer.  The dreaded Bermuda Grass had taken over everything, choking out the shrubs and flowers and leaving a nasty overgrown-weed look.

Last spring, we tried to remedy the situation by pulling ALL the mulch out, laying down high-grade weed-block and putting new mulch over the top.  It looked nice for a few months, then the nightmare returned... Bermuda grass EVERYWHERE.  Let it be known, Bermuda grass easily grows in/on top of/through mulch, so while our efforts did help kill the Bermuda grass that was under the weed-block, Bermuda grass outside the bed easily crept in and spread like wildfire throughout the mulch.

We realized it was time to call in the professionals.  Jon's co-worker, Mark, does landscaping part-time, so he was able to help us re-do our front yard landscaping so that it will last.

BEFORE

AFTER

Such a big difference!  Mark took out all the old mulch and weed-block, cut out all the Bermuda grass, removed the metal barrier on the front left side of the house and replaced it with limestone, had a guy come out and mortar the limestone beds, added soil, put down new weed-block, added drought-tolerant and deer-resistant plants, and added river stone as the new and improved "mulch."  I'm really happy with the look.  I just can't wait for the plants to grow and fill out the space.  I will probably end up adding more plants to fill out the space more.  But, in general, I'm so happy with it that it makes me want to add additional beds to the front yard and continue removing the nasty Bermuda grass.  One step at a time.

Plants in the front yard landscaping now include:
-Autumn Sage (salvia greggii)
-Black and Blue Salvia (salvia guaranitica)
-Texas Sage (leucophyllum frutescens)
-Mexican Bush (salvia leucatha)
-Lantana (lantana camaras)
-Bicolor Iris (dietes bicolor)
-Oleanders (nerium oleander)
-Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)
-Spineless Prickly Pear (opuntia ellisiana)
-Gaura (gaura lindheimeri)
-Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora)
-Rock Rose (Cistaceae)
-Vitex (vitex agnus-castus)
-Cotoneaster (cotoneaster glaucophyllus)