better late...garden bloggers' bloom day

Vitex tree

Yep, I'm four days late posting for garden bloggers' bloom day, but I did shoot these photos on the 15th. Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites bloggers to share what's blooming in their gardens on the 15th of each month, so make sure to check her blog to see blooms from all over the place.

I thought these balloon flowers were annuals, but these came back from last spring!

gray santolina

returning Mexican bush sage with new salvias and "silver dragon" liriopes  planted  in the huge old rosemary's spot

old faithful plumbago

another old faithful, Turks Cap

I think this is a hybrid annual salvia. Such an unusual color.

ornamental black pearl pepper and lobelia

Clearly this packet of mixed-color zinnia seeds was mislabeled, because I'm not a pink zinnia person.

Also blooming now are purple and white ruellia, bougainvillea, white gaura, leadwort plumbago, verbena, zexmenia, torenia, blackfoot daisies, and society garlic.

front yard garden: always a work in progress

Sometimes these things just hit you. Why do we keep ignoring these overgrown, not-entirely-healthy rosemary plants? Suddenly, I'm almost blinded to the cheery larkspur and big pot of white bougainvillea because all I see are rosemary monsters.

Vitex tree is blooming and larkspur from MSS are hanging on.

I'm a big fan of rosemary, but not when it gets huge and woody and diseased. Although it's only 60 degrees (F) right now, it was 93 (F) this afternoon when DH and I removed the offending rosemaries.

before: huge rosemary in the middle on the left and mid-right in the sidewalk

after: both big rosemaries removed

Ahh! Full sun blank slate. I'm thinking I might just put a few Blackfoot Daisies on the right along the sidewalk to mask the ugly underbelly of that santolina. I'm not at all sure what to put on the left. Another plumbago? Something in a dark green?

Earlier this morning, I harvested several quarts of shallots and about a quart of "Tavera" delicate, (maybe) stringless green beans--yippee! Good thing we're big fans of both! I'll admit that washing and preparing the shallots is kind of a pain. The green beans, however, are easy.

shallots and "Tavera" green beans

Yesterday I harvested several quarts of "Contender" green beans, which are bigger than the Tavera, and sauteed them (in olive oil) with lots of chopped onions, some minced garlic, and canned diced tomatoes. I let that mixture simmer for close to an hour, adding a little honey, salt, and pepper. It turned out great, including today's leftovers.

I'd love to hear any suggestions for the new open spaces in the front yard garden. I don't mind putting a bit of trailing rosemary back in, but I don't want it to be the main focal point.

late garden bloggers' bloom day

first-ever larkspurs from seed

I'm positively giddy about my first-ever larkspurs from seed that MSS gave me.

I'm going to blame being a day late for garden bloggers' bloom day (GBBD) on my larkspur fever. Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting GBBD on the 15th of each month. It's a great place to see blooms from all over the world. Part of the allure of the larkspurs is that they are so different from all my drought-tolerant perennials. I haven't minded watering them every other day. Okay, on to my other blooms.

gazanias in the new side yard vegetable beds

volunteer viola in the garlic bed

The vegetable bed flowers are the happiest right now because they benefit from regular water. In this never-ending drought, my vegetables are going to get watered before the native tough guys in our lawnless xeriscaped front yard.

Heirloom Byzantine Gladiolus are a little early this year.

reliable red cascade rose

Also blooming today are purple and white ruellia, blackfoot daisies, torenia, gerber daisy, white gaura, pansies, marigolds, phlox, trailing verbena, society garlic, and cilantro.

fancy tomato stakes

Husband Kurt decided to make our new tomato beds fancier by using some blackline (natural gas pipeline) as stakes. Originally, Kurt had used the blackline for curtain rods, but he replaced them with homemade copper pipe curtain rods:

So the sturdy blackline rejects were just hanging out in the mudroom. The beauty of them as tomato stakes is that you can screw on additional lengths to accommodate tomatoes that get really tall.

He also installed a drip system, which still needs a little bit of tweaking, and dug the holes for the black plastic nursery pots. I've never tried this buried-pot watering system before, but I read about it as a good root water system and thought I'd give it a shot. So far, so good.

I finally pulled out the bolted lettuces and replaced them with basils, peppers, and okra. My "Contender" bush beans seedlings are really taking off, too.

Far right are the bush bean seedlings; far left is red-veined sorrel, then red Rubin basil. Big stuff in the middle is French sorrel.

Fingers crossed we get some rain tonight.

garden bloggers' bloom day

young Mexican Plum tree's first blooms

I missed the last two garden bloggers' bloom days because I had nothing blooming except some rosemary and petunias. Most of this month's blooms are new transplants I planted in the last two weeks. Check out others' blooms from all over the world at Carol's May Dreams Gardens .

I wish this cilantro would wait a little longer to bolt, but its flowers are pretty.

The Lolla Rossa lettuce is bolting, too.

Chinese Fringe Flower (Loropetalum)

Tiny grape hyacinths (muscari) finally bloomed.

blackfoot daisies and strawflower in the new vegetable beds

This one's new to me, Snow Rose (Serissa foetida). Its delicate blooms are  a bit bigger than my pinky fingernail.

I'm experimenting with this bougainvillea. If it doesn't work, I'll stick with blackfoot daisies again.

Also blooming now are rosemary, marigolds, pansies, and a gazania.

new vegetable beds with (gasp) orange flowers

strawflower in the new vegetable beds

I'm known for my affinity for blue, purple, and white blooms to provide visual coolness during our hot, dry summers, but I'm now adding orange--hot Austin summer orange--flowers to the four new vegetable beds husband Kurt added to our side yard this weekend.

It's those darn marigolds' fault. They started it. I'm not sure if marigolds actually deter pests but they do seem to attract ladybugs, so I continue to plant them with my  spring/summer vegetables.

before: side yard with lots of bushy lantana

Kurt dug out all the lantana and added the first pile of compost and dirt

after: total area now covered with planting beds is about 12'x18'

I've planted Black Krim, Black Prince, Green Cherokee, Juliet, and Lemon Boy tomatoes; "Cleveland" culinary sage, mache, onion sets, and variegated lemon thyme in the new beds. And marigolds, orange strawflower, gazania, and blackfoot daisies.

These okra seedlings will go into the new beds, too.

Our two back yard vegetable beds need some weeding but still have some cool weather plants going strong:

Total area covered by each of these back yard beds is also about 12'x18'

I'll plant "Contender" bush beans back there this weekend. If my tiny tomato seedlings get big enough, they'll go back there, too. I have several pots of basil but am waiting to plant them until night temperatures are consistently above 50.

Kurt's got some plan in his head for building a frame for bird netting for the new beds. Since no vegetables have been planted there before, maybe it will take longer for the insects, diseases, and squirrels to find them. Yeah, right.

adding by subtracting

Since that last freeze didn't kill our huge front sidewalk agave, husband Kurt removed it this weekend. Be still my heart! That agave was just too big and drew too much attention away from some of the other cool spiky plants.

today: balance somewhat restored

last Friday: monster agave with pups hogging all the attention

phase one of removal process

agave carcass in the back yard

tiny pup transplanted to huge agave's previous spot with new blackfoot daisies

I'm hoping those blackfoot daisies will fill in around the three agaves, but I may need to add a couple more. And if I end up missing the big agave, I've got another patch of the same agaves now crowding each other and the corner streetlight.

thawed and slightly flawed

I'd sort of hoped the freezing weather would kill this agave, which is just too big now.  

Austin had several windy days in a row last week in which the daytime highs barely hit 31 and nighttime lows were in the teens/low 20s. The week before that we had more freezing temperatures and measurable snow, which is extremely unusual for Austin.

Our 1941 house has its original wood frame windows, which we normally love, but I definitely did not love their draftiness in that cold weather and am happy to be wearing only one layer of clothing and no knit cap inside the house this weekend.

Outside the house today, I finally checked out the state of the garden. Our xeric lawnless front and side yards came through fine. The only things out there I covered were two potted succulents and my potted Blackfoot Daisies.

Santolina and rosemary fare well, whether it's 30 or 103.

Paperwhites' blooms crashed and burned, but their stalks and leaves are still perky.

Even in a pot, the Mexican Feathergrass is another xeric plant that can handle cold or heat.

I experimented a bit with the backyard vegetable garden, only bothering to cover a few of the tenderest plants. I'm pleasantly surprised by the results: lots of plants are damaged but not dead, and most of the damaged vegetable leaves aren't pretty but are still edible and will be fine tossed into a soup.

Covering these leaf lettuces paid off.

I covered this second round of beet seedlings, and although they're small, they look healthy.

I covered my potted aloes, but it wasn't enough--should have brought them inside. I think this one will bounce back, though.

Violas fared well covered and did double duty as an anchor for the row cover  protecting the garlic.

Gardening on trial: genetically modified alfalfa deregulated

Finally, my gardening and trial-watching overlap. Thursday 27-January-2011, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (D-IA) decided the U.S. Dep’t of Agriculture (USDA) will fully deregulate genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready® (RR) Alfalfa. While I am upset and depressed about this move, I’m more grateful than ever to have an organic vegetable garden and more determined than ever to be a better gardener.

This story on RR Alfalfa started with a lawsuit in 2006 (details here), brought by organic farmers against Monsanto and a subsequent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on 21-June-2010. That was the first Supreme Court ruling on a genetically modified (GM) crop and was a decision that basically put the power in the hands of the USDA on these issues. Seems like lately, USDA decisions have aligned with the desires of biotech, big agribusiness, and herbicide industries.

Why am I so depressed about this move?

1) Alfalfa is used as a forage crop to feed livestock; it affects meat and dairy products...and more.
If cows are fed GE crops, those cows' milk cannot be (labeled as) organic. The global effects from widespread use of GM crops including RR Alfalfa is largely unknown. I don't even know if my little urban vegetable garden could be safe from RR Alfalfa.

Furthermore, the ramifications and global effects from widespread use of Roundup (glyphosate) are unknown at this time (re EPA).

We already know it has detrimental effects on field workers and will tend to accelerate the evolution of "superweeds."

It seems like one would have to be apathetic, extremely optimistic, or just well-paid to believe Roundup and RR crops are a good thing in the long run (see this "Understanding RR Alfalfa" report).

I believe this carte-blanche approval and widespread acceptance and use of Roundup and resulting monoculture will prove to have horrible effects on biodiversity and people's quality of food and quality of life. Beyond that, it sets a precedent for a continuing dominance of GMO over organic.

2) We have lost a big battle, maybe the last big battle for organic food.
We are seeing fewer and fewer barriers for biotech and herbicide industries to move forward with their plans to implement their experimental techniques on a grand, grand scale. Now the onus is really on us, the organic consumers, to demand transparency in labeling and truth in testing of the foods we buy at markets, grocery stores, and restaurants. 

The onus is also on us, the organic growers, to avoid becoming victims of cross-pollination and contamination from GE seeds and plants grown in fields near ours.

I doubt it’s possible to avoid contamination; there are various ways GM crops can contaminate organic crops (bees travel up to five miles, wind, birds, truck spillage.) The big biotech and herbicide companies even have various ways of spinning the results of contamination to their advantage, hurting the smaller and organic growers. As a result of this USDA move, it will simply be harder and harder to find organic foods we can really trust.

3) Some of our biggest allies capitulated.
Big players that most of us thought were on our side in this battle, particularly Whole Foods Market, finally showed a shift in their approach. Where they once fought hard against the biotech industry, they ultimately looked to compromise, settling for "a seat at the table" and a wimpy attempt to "attach strings" to the governing policies in agriculture as a last resort. (Read more on this at La Vida Locavore.)

It's all looking to me like hypocrisy and lies in a popularity contest: Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” program, aimed at battling obesity and bad eating habits among children; President Obama, USDA, FDA, and Vilsack all seem to favor Monsanto. In September 2001, Vilsack (D-IA) was named Governor of the Year by the world’s largest biotech organization, BIO, an organization with whom Monsanto worked to extend its RR Soybean patent.

All of this makes me even more determined to support my local organic farmers—we are fortunate to have so many here.

Beyond buying from local, known sources, what are my other trustworthy sources and to whom do I write? Organic Consumers Association (OCA). Center for Food Safety (CFS).

More suggestions welcome, but don't tell me to write to Obama.

Big thanks to Edible Aria for this link to non-GMO seeds.

Also big thanks to husband Kurt in helping me research and compose this post.

2011 gardening: more tough love

Saturday night, we finally got enough rain to break in my new rain gauges, a little more than half an inch. It arrived just in time to offer some protection against the past two nights' hard freezes. Something about these two weather events solidified my resolve to practice more tough love, especially in our lawnless front yard, which is filled with established drought-tolerant plants. If the indigo spires are droopy and thirsty, so be it. They'll bounce back if/when it rains.

However, I've had a more difficult time being tough with my vegetable garden, but now I can see that the vegetables will probably be fine with a little less water and a little less complete coverage in freezes. Not sure if this is apathy or wisdom, but I just don't care much if I lose some plants because of some neglect on my part.

I Harvested tiny broccoli crowns, cauliflower, parsely, cilantro, and two types of kale before the freeze.

I covered most of the potted plants, the beet seedlings, garlic, and lettuces but left the broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and carrots uncovered.

New ponytail palm! I bought two new peace lilies and a "Fabian" aralia, too.

I've become a little obsessed lately experimenting with incorporating my homegrown greens and herbs into soups. Yesterday I made up a cauliflower sweet potato soup with lots of cilantro. It was hearty and tangy, a success. It's still very cold today to this cold-wimp Texan, so I'm headed to the kitchen now to make free-range bison chili from Thunder Heart Bison .