2016 Vegetable Garden

just went out to re-cover my peach tree only to see a little hole in the ground beside of where my balloon flower is, and it looks like half of the balloon flower shoots have been eaten off....dang little beasts. They made a pain in the butt of themselves last year too but back then i didnt have any perennials to worry about.

well it is 50F this morning ... I think I have a sub tropical climate of my own in my garden! yeah !
The wind is blowing like crazy and sometimes ut does more damage than the cold.

It's 52* here and very windy. This is definitely a season of extremes.

drthor, I've found that the wind and wind gusts are more damaging that the frost in my microclimate. I've planted some trees and I've got a couple of hedges started to help protect the veg garden, but these measures are only just now starting to grow to a point that they are making a slight difference. The trees have just now grown to be taller than me--which isn't saying much. We are in the middle is a good sized flat field which is backed up to a very large field and the Sabine river. And more fields beyond that. So the wind really blows out here. No houses or buildings to help slow it down. I feel your wind-pain.

I've just decided that delaying planting out into the garden until April is the best bet for me. I'm tired of coming home from work to commune with my tomato plants only to discover that, despite my best efforts and trellising measures, my little darlings have been snapped off by the winds. The fresh leaves can become quite desiccated from all that wind as well. This way I can come home from work and go out onto the back porch and tell them how beautiful they are and relish the fragrance of their little green leaves out of the wind. Win win!

Terri

i do have to say that gardening is a lot cheaper when you have a forest in your back yard, goodies for the soil are only a few steps away, just grab a bucket and shovel, find a rotted log and help yourself, this stuff that i just found today is the exact consistency of potting soil!

Well we had pea to marble sized hail last night along with very heavy rains and high winds. My poor onions took a beating. I hope they can rebound.

Some how we didn't get any rain or hail but wow was it windy. I know this is the windy season but this is crazy. The wind is so loud it keeps me awake.

Stephanie, I hope your onions recover.

Welllll.....I hope my onions recover from the hail and high winds we had Thursday morning. It looks like most of the leaves were snapped off/blown off/beaten off, but the main stems are still intact.

i find that most stuff can bounce back so long as that main stem or crown has not been messed up

That's what I'm hoping. I'll fertilize them with some high nitrogen fertilizer this week and next and see if that helps. The wind also blew off all my mulch! It's been a wicked late winter/early spring so far and we're just getting started.

My son was mowing the grass in the backyard, and found a friend . . . do not know if it is a good friend or a bad one . . .

Wow, Stephanie that storm must have been crazy. I do think your onions will recover they may be set back a little but maybe not.

We have had some really chilly mornings here. My neighbor's fig tree got its tips frozen last week. It's beautiful during the day. Happy Easter!

From the onions I've examined, it doesn't look like any had the main stalk disturbed, just the leaf straps blown off and knocked around. I really hope they pull through. I posted on Dixondale's FB page, but haven't gotten a response yet. About a week before the hail storm, we had straight line winds that I really thought was going to be a tornado. It's been a rough start to our spring!

I Just found his interesting article on ONIONS on the TX gardener FB page:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn19fbNm_PI&feature=youtu.be

looks like my beets and red romaine lettuce are off to a good start, as well as my red potatoes.

Interesting video, drthor! Thank you!

My onions are starting to bulb up and also flowering.
I am removing the flower buds and I am wondering if I could trim the onions leaves like in the video. The plants are falling down after the high wind ...

Buena Mulata is the first pepper to form. (this variety was featured in the last issue of "Heirloom gardener" magazine by Baker Creek)
All the other pepper plants are loaded with flower buds.
What am I going to do with all of these peppers this year? any suggestion?
At least 12 variety of my tomatoes have fruits already.

I have started to learn about "fermentation".
I am very good brewing KOMBUCHA and I love it.
Now I have tried to ferment kale. Look: that huge basket of kale did fit in those little jars !
2 more days and I will try my fermented kale!

I have a new favorite vegetable this year: PODS from "Forage radishes".
I bought those radish seeds to be used as fall/winter crop to feed my husbands pets. These radishes germinated so fast. I just threw them down. The seeds anchored themselves during the fall floods and they grew so fast !
I harvested the leaves so many times. Then huge roots developed, which I let them bolt.
The white flowers attracted so many bees and pollinators. Then some of them were full of aphids and the lady bugs + larvae arrived !
Now the flowers are turning into very tender and sweet pods. I harvested so many yesterday and pickled them.
I used this recipe: http://yougrowgirl.com/pickledradishseedpods/
Look at the first picture: the white flower after being pollinate will turn purple.
I love this time of the year.

Hello. You and I have a few things in common drthor. I am always saying, "I love this time of year!" I home can jams and pickles.

Happy gardening! Hope that you have the best season ever!

one of the perennials that was in a "wildflower" seed mixture a friend sent to me last year has finally bloomed. I am not exactly sure what it is, but it smells great!

This message was edited Mar 30, 2016 11:14 AM

It is MEXICAN TARRAGON..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagetes_lucida
I have one plant and it keeps coming back every year.
I cannot grow French Tarragon here. This is a similar substitute but more Anise flavor.
You can use it in your cooking or to make flavored oils.
Enjoy !

im not thinking that is it, as the central part of the flower does not match mexican tarragon when i do a google photo search. I suppose i am to blame for some of the confusion, i meant that the flowers smelled great, the leaves have no scent at all.



This message was edited Mar 30, 2016 3:36 PM

Mexican tarragon usually flowers later in the season. I wonder if it's wallflower?

Since it came from a wildflower seed mix wallflower is much more likely.

im going to go ahead with wallflower then ;)

Check this out. http://shop.wildseedfarms.com/Wallflower/productinfo/3243/

and PlantFiles http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/search/results.php?gralcom=wallflower

im willing to bet that i have this one, which means i should probably plant some more seed this year so i wont have to go through next season with a plant that only has leaves

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/169799

well here is todays funny for all of you guys. I bought a Sea Holly plant a couple months ago and it arrived bare root. so i planted it in the ground and didnt see anything happening, so i figured i must have a dud, so i pulled it up today, and surprise, turns out i planted the darned thing upside down, there were little growth shoots trying to start underground, LOL. The grower had snipped off the end of taproot and i misidentified that as being the stem end.

Live and learn, LOL!

Oh wow! Just think if you'd not pulled it up, it probably would've been a dud!

I am sharing my tomatoes and peppers with many of my neighbors. They'll go to their new homes tomorrow. I've kept what I need from all my seedlings and giving the rest away. If I do this again next year, I'll charge for them, but this year I just want them G-O-N-E!

Im sure you aren't the first to do this. When I've gotten plants in the mail there have been times I had trouble telling which end was up. Lol It makes me wonder how many people thought the plant didn't make it when it was really upside down. Lol

Stephanie, I know that feeling all to well. Gone is good. It was in the low 30s this a.m. still too cold to plant. The plants I have on my backporch are stalled.

It was in the low 40s here this morning. Many of the people who are taking my transplants commented that they planted early and lost a lot of their plants.

This weather is confusing.