This blog is often neglected and mostly random pictures with occasional text thrown in for illumination as required. Tumblr is a much better platform for the purposes of my gardening blog. I can upload while outside, relaxing in the sun and beauty that is our garden. You can follow me on Tumblr here.
It’s over a hundred here every day now and some days it is easy to forget how beautiful and plentiful the garden is.
The ever sprawling, ever growing pumpkin has begun to consume the watermelon which is just out of sight in the lower right hand corner.
When I planted these seeds the packets were marked, concord grapes and blackberries. Obviously, seeds from Amazon which originate in China are not reliable as to labeling.
This is supposedly a saffron plant, well that’s what the seed packet from China said anyway. I need to go some research to verify and learn how to harvest if it truly is saffron.
The first of the tomatoes from the garden were picked yesterday afternoon, just in time for a lovely dinner of roasted potatoes and Stroganoff. The green beans were picked and quickly blanched for dinner as well. Although the beans I picked yesterday were all that lovely plum shade, as soon as they hit the boiling water the plum shade lost it’s luster and returned to the standard green bean green. However, no matter the color the beans were tasty.
The tomatoes were a variety of colors and varieties, from that mixed up heirloom seed packet last year. All of the tomatoes actually had taste, and weren’t just bland, tomato resembling spheres. The orange tomato was fabulous but the biggest surprise was how tangy and tomato-flavor intensive one of the green/black smaller tomatoes was (it’s the tomato in the dead center of the photo below). Next batch of tomatoes will undoubtedly go to my mother, question is will she step out of her comfort zone and try the non-standard, non-commercial tomato? I’m guessing she will, but she will be very hesitant (Love you Mum).
Summer temperatures have arrived here in the desert and as a result my garden has been in full bloom for weeks. I’ve been lazy and haven’t shared pictures but I’ll make up for that this morning.
The peas and green beans are providing for fresh vegetables on the dinner table about once a week or so. They are a complete hit with the family, and who can possibly complain about that! Although, the green beans are also a brilliant deep purple as well. The carrots planted next to the peas and beans are growing like gangbusters as well.
The tomatoes are content doing their thing and this weekend I will have quite the tomato harvest to bring in.
There are wildflowers and sunflowers busting out everywhere as well.
And this morning, I cut two more flowering stems of my favorite flower Gladiola. I cut some mint to add to the vase since no roses I could reach were blooming or in vase worthy condition this morning. Now my desk and our office smells beautifully of mint and is graced by long beautiful stems of glads. There are more glads blooming but not yet ready to be cut. The deep lavender stem had a double bloom when I cut it this morning and so in a couple of weeks we will be graced with another lovely cutting from the bulb.
Hope everyone has a Happy Mother’s Day and may all your gardens provide endless color and beauty and may they be as tasty as these cucumbers will be later this summer!
Roses are in full bloom, all the bushes are heavy with buds and blooms. The backyard smells amazing and thus I’m very reluctant to go out and trim away the older roses. The smell is just to intoxicating.
The remainder of the backyard is in full bloom. The vegetables are doing amazing and quite soon I shall have a bounty of tomatoes.
The tomatoes have been protected by bird netting for a couple of reasons. The birds will seriously have to work to help themselves to my tomatoes but more importantly the netting has lifted the tomatoes off the cement wall where they were resting. The heat would have killed the tomatoes almost as quickly as the greedy doves and mocking birds that hang out on the back fence.
Not sure what these blooms are, either peas or green beans but not sure which. I do know that when they mature, they will be delicious. The few rainbow carrots seeds we had left have taken off beautifully immediately left of the bean/pea crop. I will definitely have to get more rainbow carrot seeds, the turtle loves to much on them almost as much as the bird. Hubby isn’t necessarily overly fond of carrots so I’m wondering if he will like these later on in the year.
The wildflower seeds that were planted under the palm tree have really taken off. The first bloom has appeared and there are many more on the plants that are thriving in the desert heat. If I’m lucky the trend will continue and I will have cutting flowers for the house throughout the spring and summer.
One last glimpse of the beautiful roses and then I’m off to write and putter.
So, the darling husband and I were having an impassioned gardening discussion yesterday and it brings up an interesting question. What kind of gardener are you?
Hubby is the technical, precision, everything has to be just so kind of gardener. No risks, no room for error, he gardens precisely like what he does professionally. He engineers his gardens with the order and measured path of an engineer.
Me? I’m the exact opposite. I don’t care what the alleged professional gardeners say, I’ll try anything. If I want to plant lettuce, I’ll plant lettuce. I’ll grow the flowers I like. The worst thing that could happen is that something doesn’t make it. But when those gardening experiments pay off, they pay off in tasty vegetables, sweet fruits, and fabulous flowers.
I’ll take wild and unexpected growth over the advice of some unknown gardening professional that doesn’t live in my house or know my soil. I’d rather take the chance of something not growing, then always wishing I lived somewhere else so I could grow this or that. I’m not normally adventurous but give me dirt and something to grow and I’ll try just about anything.
After all, with this adorable dog
guarding the garden, how can I possible fail to want to be out back enjoying the sunshine?
Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go water my chocolate mint which is hanging out on the front porch.
This is one of the glorious Gila Woodpeckers that has taken up residence in our Saguaro cactus in the front yard. This morning he was casually hanging out on the newest palm frond in the backyard with me, the dogs, and the cat while I gardened. He has been around on and off all morning and he was busy talking to himself as he hung out.
My darling husband rototilled another patch of our wonderful clay soil for me late yesterday afternoon. He then raked in some manure and a bag of composting soil. I now have two wonderful patches of growing soil where once was just hard packed clay that grew nothing and refused to even absorb water. Now I have this:
Yep, doesn’t look like much when I start does it? But I quickly planted the bell peppers that were started in the bathtub months ago, some of the seeds sowed less than two weeks ago have sprouted, and I planted a tomato and some spicy chilies that I picked up yesterday afternoon. So that sad, brown patch looks like this after working in the yard this morning:
I am confident that in a couple of weeks both these “plots” will be brimming with edible goodness springing forth from formerly dead earth. A variety of things were planted there this morning, concord grape seeds, blackberry seeds, a Poblano chili plant, A New Mexico chili, four transplanted bell peppers (one already bearing fruit, pictured below), a solar fire tomato plant, saffron seeds that arrived with the Mexican watermelon seeds, the rest of the parsley seeds and some cucumber seeds. An eclectic mix, some of the seeds will sprout and do well, others may not, which is ok. After all, you never know what will and won’t grow no matter what the experts says until you try it yourself.
My helpers for the morning, although I must say they were more interested in sunning themselves and barking at golfers.
The backyard is beginning to just flourish and new growth is visible every where you look.
And amidst all this new growth is our favorite palm tree who decided to take root an flourish amongst the roses.
Of all the amazing things growing in the backyard this spring, I think I might be most excited about the palm tree I had nothing to do with planting. I’ve nicknamed him Thomas because it is determined to grow in an environment that wouldn’t be considered ideal for palm trees. Thomas is growing quickly and at this rate will be providing decent shade next year. The rose bushes don’t seem to mind at all and so I’m considering this gardening perfection that I had no hand in but will love nonetheless.
I have more planting to do this afternoon. I need to get the front garden pots planted and situated. If I’m lucky maybe I’ll catch the woodpeckers flying in and out of the cactus while I’m out there after lunch.
Look what sprung to life in our backyard over night, a rare desert mushroom. We may live on a golf course but we most definitely live in a desert and this is the first time since we moved here that either of us can remember a mushroom growing. The little guy sprang to life between the shade of one of the palm trees and our bird of paradise. Apparently, the drenching a couple of weeks ago has resulted in this little gem. It is most like a Podaxis pistillaris. The weather is dry once again and warm so it will be interesting to see how long the mushroom lives and how much taller and fuller it becomes.
Before I spent the last week resting an overstrained thumb, read all about it here, my new garden gloves were delivered.
I needed a new pair that was soft and supple and yet long enough to let me get between rose thorns safely. These gloves are nothing short of amazing. They are soft, cover my wrists completely and best of all, come the heat of July and August, that patch of suede on the thumbs will come in handy to mop sweat from my face.
The seeds and bulbs planted a almost two weeks ago have begun to sprout. We got a good drenching last weekend which has helped everything grow as well.
These are peas and beans with a garlic in the far bottom right of the photo.
The tomato is starting to become heavy with blooms which means I will soon be feasting on a regular basis on tomatoes. Oh, I cannot wait!
The hot pepper plant is heavy with blooms as well. They are quite beautiful to be honest. The pepper tree never seems to grow exhausted and I think I might try grinding my own chili pepper spice this summer. The hot peppers are shading and protecting the sweet peppers I transplanted from the bathroom a couple of weeks ago. The sweet peppers can’t seem to decide if they want to grow or die. I’m sure once the weather starts being consistently warm and the nights warmer, they too will spring to explosive growth.
The mint patch has started to recover as well. It is a wonderful smelling ground cover and prevents the scorpion problem from ever rearing it’s ugly head. Just before I snapped the shot, one of the baby lizards scooted back into the cover in the mint. The little lizards like to hang out in the mint and sun themselves on the fence line, perfect garden symbiosis.
With the thumb pretty close to back to normal, I can get busy planting the rest of the seeds that need to be planted. But to do that, I need to get over to the gardening center and pick up some much needed healthy soil. Ours isn’t horrible but our natural soil is diatomaceous and always needs some help. The bird netting arrives from Amazon today which I will definitely need as the fruit and vegetables begin to grow in the coming months.
The Saguaro in our front yard is looking sad these days. Over the fall and winter the local Gila Woodpecker population took up residence in our cactus. The lovely and towering cactus is now riddled with woodpecker holes.
I haven’t yet been able to catch the woodpeckers in or on the cactus when I have the camera out. We have heard them however, one of them tried to drill a hole in our stucco by our front window. The hole house shook, took me a bit to figure out what was going on. I am tempted to take a camping chair onto the front porch and sit very quietly one morning to see if I can catch one of the woodpeckers at or in the cactus.
The holes are far more disturbing to look at then they are for the cactus. The presence of the holes means that we have a healthy micro-ecology in our yards. Plenty of water, food, nectar, and spots to cool off on hot days or to take shelter from blowing winds. It may bother me whenever I see the holes, but it is only a fleeting discomfort.
My Bathtub Garden 