Category: Gardening

Garden Time

We spent the weekend weeding the garden area this included lots of pulling up stuff by hand.

We planted tomatoes, jalapenos, bell peppers and eggplant that were all plants we had bought.

We added manure and humus and then covered both of these 25 foot long beds with 6mm plastic to stop the weed issues. We ran soaker hoses in both beds so those beds are good to go. I had won this 6mm plastic at Auction.

A few weeks ago we planted the raised bed that is in our backyard and that stuff looks amazing. We topped it off with humus to keep it moist and give the plants a lot of nutrients.

We planted seeds in rock wool cubes for cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, two kinds of lettuce and some swiss chard those are in the house right now because they like cooler weather by the time its cooler outdoors they will be ready for transplanting.

If you love tomatoes like us it is better to stagger the planting by a few weeks. We will probably even do some in the greenhouse. We currently have about 25 suckers rooting off existing tomato plants we still have growing just for the suckers.

Now we need to decide what all were doing hydroponic in the greenhouse but that will be later next month when the greenhouse cools down. Even though we have a swamp cooler Jack thinks its still to hot.

Our 2 younger kids both love gardening.

Our daughter will be 33 in December she is 2 classes away from getting her Masters of Agriculture from Sam Houston. This is not her only degree she has a Bachelors in Exercise and Sport Science from Texas State and a Masters of Science in Kinesiology from University of Texas.

Our youngest son was a United States Marine for 8 years he will be 28 in September. He just started classes for a degree in Horticulture in North Carolina.

Vegetable gardening has always been a very big part of our lives and I guess it always will be.

 

 

 

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Thriller, Spiller and Filler

Thriller, Spiller, and Filler is a term used when you are planting plants in a container or a pot. This is the designer way to make a beautiful planter.

They say if you follow these simple rules you will not be disappointed in the way it turns out.

There are times I just want flowers or vines but I have learned to appreciate this method of planting.

This container was older & rusted metal I painted it with copper spray paint. It was meant to be used for a water hose storage & it had a hole we plugged up with a plastic cap using silicone.

In this metal tub, there is green and purple sweet potato vine for my spiller, pink polka dot plant, sword fern for my thriller, wandering jew, and vinca vine for my filler. I think I went a bit overboard but I love how it looks.

Try some designer planting in a container you want to repurpose & you will be surprised at the beauty you can create.

Plants2

Plants1

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Heirloom Tomatoes

We love gardening and trying new things but we only stick to Heirloom varieties for vegetables.

These yellow/orange tomatoes are called Persimmon and they are a meaty tomato. The taste is wonderful and it will wake up your taste buds.

The big ones average about 1.25#s each. They are huge.

We have them in the greenhouse in dutch buckets using gravel no dirt, the no-till garden and in pots.  We were experimenting to see what works out best and produces the biggest and most fruit.

The largest tomatoes were grown in the no-till garden. The temperatures have gotten so hot we have added 40% shade cloth over the outside vegetables.

Our greenhouse is getting up to 97 degrees and the plants are paying for it. Even with fans, shade cloth at 40% the sides rolled up and the front and back doors opened we can not seem to get the temperatures down below 90 degrees. The auto drip system for watering is set for 5 x a day.

The joys of gardening are figuring out what works best and enjoying what you have grown.

Persimmon1

 

 

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DIY – Succulent table

Recently I was on an auction site that had the baby change table tops that go on top of a chest of drawers.

I started bidding and believe it or not these things are $150.00 – $200.00 each. I ended up winning 4 of them for a grand total of $22.00 for all of them.

After staring at them a few days I came up with the idea to use to some table legs I already had and make a succulent table.

I had my husband put the legs on the table and reinforce it then I mixed up some grey chalk paint and painted it all. We then lined the inside with some of the leftover greenhouse plastic.

It was starting to look pretty good. I went to Lowes to check out the clearance rack and low and behold there was a large pot of succulents piled in this container that would be $12.00. Well, that was a bargain because small succulents are generally $3.00 each this was about $75.00 worth of stuff.

We added some soil and I planted it and I love the way it turned out. It sits on our back porch and really seems to like the area.

As far as the other 3 changing table tops I gave one to my sister, and we are making the grandkids a lego table with the biggest one it is a foot longer than the others. That leaves me one to do something with and I am thinking it might make a good potting table.

Use your imagination to figure out how to repurpose something into something new you never know what you might come up with.

Succulent table1

 

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Hydroponic greenhouse tomatoes

In our hydroponic greenhouse, our tomatoes are going crazy. The beefsteaks are big producers. The Persimmons they are orange tomatoes are just starting to bloom and the romas are newly planted.

All the hydroponic greenhouse plants were started from seed and they are in gravel with a timer that waters them with nutrients 3 x a day then it recycles it back to the main tank for the next time.

We keep the suckers trimmed off them which allows a better production of tomatoes but you can plant the suckers in water and let them root and we have been doing that. Now we have an additional 35 plants to do something with.  We have given away at least 30 plants.

We have already planted some outside so we can compare the production and health of the plants. We have some planted in buckets and some in a no-till garden.

We have 8 tomatoes in dutch buckets that are beefsteak. This variety does better if you let them get taller. Ours are 7 and 8ft tall now. We have strings of rope across the top of the greenhouse to guide them along and hold the weight of the plants and the tomatoes.

All the years of gardening we have done we have never had this much success with tomatoes. Last count 7 of the 8 plants had 143 tomatoes on them. We are so ready to be able to taste these tomatoes. There are four that are starting to turn colors.

I have a funny feeling we will be selling tomatoes, freezing them and making lots of good stuff with them.

Enjoy life and do something you truly enjoy because it will give you such pleasure and peace at the end of the day.

Tomatoes

 

 

 

 

 

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The beauty of a weed

Even I can find the beauty in a weed and it’s flowers.

I love taking pictures of flowers but especially using my macro lens because it shows all the little details we might not see otherwise.

These are some of my favorite weeds to take pictures of. They are called ” Daisy Fleabane” but the flowers are truly amazing when you look at them up close.

Weeds1weeds2

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Hydroponic Gardening

I have planted the first seeds in the rockwool that are for the inside plants.

This time of year it is so hot for lettuce, spinach, cabbage and swiss chard but if you grow them indoors hydroponically it is a win win situation. Those are the seeds I just planted.

I have ordered many supplies for the big greenhouse outside we are waiting for the plastic to arrive. The kind I ordered is 10 mil. woven clear plastic it has a longer life span than the regular clear in fact I think it is 7 years compared to 4.

We are also doing shade cloth since Texas is so hot it will allow for better ventilation. The shade cloth will go first then the woven plastic and we can raise the plastic up and open the screen doors to ventilate the greenhouse.

We will be doing several types of hydroponics the dutch buckets and the Kratky method are two and we may even do a third.

I have to get a load of sand delivered and then the pond liner that is 22 mil. will go over that because this hydroponic set up is a sterile environment there will be no dirt inside of this greenhouse. Only water, buckets, container, plants grown from seeds, and nutrients.

I will post pictures as things start happening hopefully in the next few weeks.

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The colors of Crepe Myrtles

Here are some of our crepe myrtles.

We only have one purple one and one red one we have numerous of the pink fushia ones and one white one.

I really do not know how many we have but I think it is around 10 -12 of them. Some are big as a tree because they are much older.

I love crepe myrtle time.

CrepeMyrtle3CrepeMyrtle2CrepeMyrtle1

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