Progress!

Another beautiful day in central Texas. Despite work keeping me away from the garden, and away from real cooking, I was determined to make some progress today before the entire month slipped away without any thought to the future, or at least any planting. I dug up more sod out of the area which will become the squash patch, though there is still a long way to go. I hope to get the area tilled, compost added, and hilled in preparation for the squash plants this weekend. In the meantime, I have planted the seends of some of the heirloom squash seeds so that I may transplant them to the garden, but still not lose growing time. According to a publication by the Travis county master gardener's association, I am a bit late for earliest harvest on some of the squashes, but within the planting times. I also started the cukes, though honestly I believe that these are too late to be starting from seed. With seeds left, I hope to make these part of a fall garden.

The cilantro is beginning to bolt, or try to do so, meaning that I may well have to cut it and dry what is left (which is substantial) for future use. Peas are still coming on strong and have a sweetness that makes all of the snacking on them as a kid make perfect sense even in the light of the stereotypes about kids not eating vegetables. Give kids fresh produce, especially produce that they have seen grow, and helped to grow, and they will eat it. I know that I did and continue to do so.

No sign of the onion seeds sprouting, and I have given up hope on them. Maybe I will try again with the remaining seeds in the fall. Slowly but surely I am starting to learn what I can grow from seed, and what I should just purchase as plants. Tomatoes fall into this latter category, at least this year as I have not had time to get seeds started. The same goes for peppers, which is a shame given the number of pepper varieties I have as seed currently.

The weather is still a challenge, but then it is always a challenge here in the hill country. The temperatures are warm, but rain and cool fronts still come with some regularity. It is even possible, though unlikely, that we could get a frost. Fortunately this does not seem to be on the horizon, and I am planting with some confidence that spring/summer is here.

Touching base

I know that it has been a while since I have updated the blog, and for those who read it regularly I apologize. The fact is that the increase in my business has taken away the time I would normally spend in the garden. I still find time each morning, or almost every morning anyway, to go into the garden pull a weed or two, then pick some cilantro for my huevos rancheros. At the same time I usually munch on a few peas and some parsely for good measure.

I watched a monarch butterfly land on the parsely this afternoon, parsely being one of the crops that serves as a food source for the monarch larve/caterpillars. I grow enough to allow for this to happen and even go to some lengths to protect these caterpillars who are feeding on my crop of parsely simply because I love the butterfly it will become. Often wasps get involved and kill the caterpillars, but I do what I can.

We have gotten some thunderstorms which knocked down some of the pea plants, but for the most part they seem fine and they are still producing quite well, as are the cilantro and parsely. Unfortunately work and weather have conspired to keep me from getting squash, tomatoes, and peppers in the ground on time. Nonetheless I will do what I can as soon as I can, especially since I do not want to spend a minimum of $1.oo a pound on winter squash again this year.

All the best to all of my gardening friends.. I have some new products in which I will be reviewing in the coming weeks...

Snacking

With work claiming just about all of my time, I was still able to sneak a few moments at sunset to wander about the garden snacking on the fresh peas, parsely and cilantro.. smelling the lemon verbena as it begins to come out.. and generally enjoying the garden. I removed a few shovelfulls of sod from the area I will dedicate to the squash this year, and I pulled a few weeds, but mostly I just wanted to enjoy the garden that I almost never get to see because of work commitments..

Finally some sunny days have resulted in the garden drying out somewhat, so I am watering still hoping for some onion sprouts, though my expectations have lessened without a hint of them thus far..

I am a bit behind in getting pepper seeds started, and I have postponed starting tomatoes from seed until the fall crop. With a bit of luck and some free time I will get cucumbers in the ground soon, with other summer vegetables to follow.

First sign of peas..

There is a story told that Thomas Jefferson, an avid gardener himself, had competitions with his neighbors to see who would be first to put fresh peas on the table. While I would not want to be a part of that competition, I believe that Jefferson grew fifteen varieties of peas in the endeavor to be first with the spring crop of peas, though on the rare occassion when he was first, the winner usually being his neighbor George Divers, he told those on his farm to withhold the information: "No, say nothing about it, it will be more agreeable to our friend to think that he never fails."

All of which is simply my own way of announcing that I have the first sight of the pea crop. In a few days I believe that I shall have a the first few pods of a respectable size, and merely a few days later enough for a meal sized harvest.

Though I have been harvesting cilantro for some days now, this will be the first non-herb produce of the year, which is always a cause for some excitement.

Rain.. rain.. rain..

Short message today as I could not work in the garden at all. It is bad enough that the ground is still soft from the rains earlier in the week, and the general wet year we have had, but today it has been steadily raining so that even walking out to the garden will compact the soil.

Despite this, I did walk out to the garden and look it over a couple of time today, the second time allowed for one of the joys of a kitchen garden in that I was able to take my neighbor back to the garden to harvest some cilantro for her dinner. While I love growing the vegetables, fruits, and herbs, and certainly I love eating and preserving them, there is a real joy to sharing the produce with neighbors and friends. The bumper crop of cilantro allows me to be very generous without worrying about having enough to put away until it is cool enough here to grow it again.

More compost material

Never underestimate the power of being friendly. Since my last post I have more than doubled the size of the compost pile simply by letting one potential client, and one existing client know that I would be happy to haul away their organic matter which they had already bagged. So in the course of merely several days the compost pile has gone from near nothing to being over 3 and a half feet high and about 8 feet in diameter.

All of this is of course more preparation for next year than useful for this year, but as with all gardeners I am always looking to the future.. this compost now will certainly make amending the soil later much easier as well as less expensive than it would otherwise be.

No sign of onion sprouts yet, though I remain hopeful.

There is little more that can bring such great joy to a natural gardener's heart than compost, but one of the things that can is FREE compost.. On a recent job site the owner is cleaning up the backyard in preparation for renting out the home which entails removing years of collected layers of leaves which were never raked. The plan for these leaves was to bag them and send them to the landfill. That was the plan before I jumped in to offer to take the bags away saving them the trouble of disposal, and at the same time gaining some wonderful compost material which is already partially decayed. It pays to make it known that you are a gardener, and that you will eagerly take away compost material!.  

More rain

Another day of thunderstorms and rain. Makes me wish that I had planted a few more seeds earlier in the week, or had been able to get the soil and compost to create the new bed, but those will just have to wait until it dries out somewhat. I am toying with the idea of tilling the grass under, despite the fact that this will increase weed possibilities, and then covering it all with newspaper and the compost/soil blend. My thought is that if I can put a sufficient layer of soil and compost, as well as newpaper which will decay over time, over the chopped up grass, I will be able to starve it for light and air and thus kill it. I suspect that this is largely wishful thinking. Since I do not have time to do it right and still get the bed done given my work schedule, I will probably try this short cut and see how it works.