Update from my garden

Thankfully, we finally have a break from the 100 degree days. I’m not sure how much longer our plants could have taken that. Still no rain in my neck of the woods. It has been hit or miss all summer. My parents, on the northeast side of town, have gotten about twice as much as we have on the southwest, although that’s not saying much since I’ve only gotten about 3” this year.

Over the last couple of weekends I have given all of my backyard beds a boost with a mixture of diluted liquid seaweed, molasses, and fish emulsion. The seaweed is supposed to help them with the drought. There’s a long list of benefits of using these organic supplements in the garden and this is the year our plants need all the help they can get.

I’ve noticed two of my citrus trees, the ones in full sun, have yellowing leaves and some of the fruit has yellow on the side that is exposed to the sun. I think they are getting sunburned (but if you have another theory, please let me know). I’ve read that when the fruit gets sunburned it will eventually ruin the fruit. My mandarin is still on the small side, so I went ahead and picked the burned ones. That will let the tree put more energy into its root system anyway, which is not a bad thing.

The summer heat has been unreal, even for those of us who have lived here most of our lives. My husband and I decided we couldn’t take it anymore, so we looked at a high temperature map and found the coolest places in the country we could escape to, our choices were Seattle, Portland, OR and Portland, ME. We lucked into a good deal on plane tickets to Portland, OR and off we went. We were there while Irene was striking the east coast. We were worried for friends and family there, but we were grateful that we chose the west coast instead of the east coast for our vacation.

Portland is called the City of Roses and is home to the International Rose Test Garden and Japanese Garden in a 40 acre city park called Washington Park as well as the Portland Chinese Garden in Chinatown. I had a jacket on most of the time we were there, it was awesome. To see more pictures from my trip go to my online photo album.

The local plant sales will be getting into full swing later this month and will continue into October. The Houston Garden Club’s Bulb & Plant Mart, master gardeners plant sales, and the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center plant sale to name a few. Check out my event calendar for more details.

March Madness

I’m not talking about basketball! I’m talking about the mad dash outdoors to garden, the long list of gardening projects, the careful scheduling required to attend all of the plant sales and local gardening talks, the craze that hits us when the temperatures warm up and it is time to garden.

The past two weekends have been about getting the beds ready for the growing season. I’ve been cutting back all the dead branches and raking the leaves out of the beds.

I finally finished that process today and then sprinkled cottonseed meal on everything. Cottonseed meal is an organic fertilizer that can be used on pretty much anything.

Next weekend I’ll top dress everything with compost and mulch.

In between cleaning up the beds, with the help of my husband and a friend of his, we finished the newly constructed beds. They moved 10 yards of soil for me!

Just in time for the plant sales! she says, followed by an evil laugh

Ignore the hole on the left, just a
little sprinkler repair needed....

The rain barrels that I ordered a few weeks ago came in. I spent part of Saturday getting their cinder block pads created. Now, I just need to call the gutter guys to have the downspouts rerouted into the barrels.

I can’t wait to have 600 gallons worth of fresh rain water!

No time to chat. I’ve got to start planning how I’m going to fill up those huge new beds. Next Saturday is the first day of the Houston Arboretum’s Native Plant Sale, maybe I’ll see you there.
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