Garden Report 2012.05.25 and Sage Discussion

Garden continues happily but more rain is needed soon.  Temperatures in the upper 80°/90° are drying out the soil quickly.
Tomatoes large and small are ripening.

Clockwise from center top:  Cherokee Purple, Grape Tomato, Golden Jubilee, Black Cherry, Sun Gold and Bradley.

Picked the first cucumber.
Picking squash, both yellow and zucchini, regularly.
Blueberries continue to produce.
Green beans are blooming again.  
Watching the figs but they are not ripe yet.

My cousin, who lives in the UK, and I were discussing sage today.  So here are pictures of my sage for comparison with the English varieties.

First, the cooking herb version of sage from the garden.

And the Silverado Sage shrub that is purported to predict coming rain when it blooms.

Garden Report 2012.0505

Everything is still growing and blooming, though we need rain!!!


Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Picked the first blackberries (2) and the first zucchini today.

More green beans, carrots and a few more snow peas.

Garden Report 2012.04.26

Pulled remaining broccoli stalks although conflicted that they should be left as worm sinks.
Pea-sized figs on the tree.

Today's harvest - green onions, green beans, broccoli and snow peas.

Garden Report - April 2012

Lettuce that was allowed to flower.

It’s already late April, time to start my garden reports again. 

The lettuce is finished for the year in my Texas garden.  Yesterday I pulled all the remaining lettuce because it was going to seed.  I am sorry to see the lettuce supply end.  We have been eating fresh garden lettuce for 2 months, since mid-February.   There are a few green onions that remain but they will need to be pulled soon before they get too strong.

A few snow peas have been picked with more on the way.  

It won’t be long before there are fresh blackberries and green beans.

Snowpeas

Blackberries

Young green tomatoes

 

Tomatoes continue to bloom and the already set fruit is growing nicely.  

 

 

 

The fennel (butterfly/caterpillar food) is growing nicely but the current pest seems to prefer the chinese cabbage.

Fennel

Caterpillar munching on chinese cabbage.

Busy Day at the Feeders

It must be the cold.


A large flock of finches have almost emptied the black oil sunflower seed feeder by mid-afternoon and the newly filled suet log is also nearly gone thanks to the sparrows and titmice.

The finches are not at all shy about continuing to feed while I take pictures.  

House Sparrow in the abelia --
waiting for me to go away so he can return to the suet feeder.

No winter here

We have had little cold weather this season but some rain has fallen.  Only a few light freezes, a very mild winter:  6 days in 2012 with temperatures 75° and above.  Weather.com's 10 day forecast shows 4 days with chances of rain but again no real cold weather.

Dripping Springs, TX (78620) Weather

Updated: Feb 10, 2012, 10:25am

UPDATE DATA

• Today
• Hourly
• Tomorrow
• Weekend
• 5 day
• 10 day
• Monthly
• Map

• Detailed Forecast
• Text Forecast

TodayFeb 10	Sat11	Sun12	Mon13	Tue14	Wed15	Thu16	Fri17	Sat18	Sun19

AM Showers	Mostly Sunny	Mostly Cloudy	T-Showers	Sunny	Scattered T-Storms	Few Showers	Partly Cloudy	Sunny	Mostly Sunny
61°FHigh	55°	46°	69°	74°	73°	72°	65°	67°	68°
37°Low	35°	41°	44°	55°	54°	49°	42°	45°	51°

The drought is not over but the grass or at least the spring weeds are happy.  So tempting to start planting the garden but it's actually about 2 month early.....

Currently from the garden we have fresh
lettuce, spinach, 
green onions, parsley and cilantro.  

The Mt. Laurel is starting to bloom and Lady Banks is confused with a few patches of blossoms already open.