Fruits and Landscaping

I guess going on five months its about time for another entry, so here goes.

As I indicated in a prior post, I planned to put in some berry bushes in the front bed- last week I did that, planting the two original blueberry bushes in the bed, along with four smaller bushes of the same type (rabbiteye climax) that I bought from a guy at the farmer's market for a really good price. I ended up filling the bed with a modified Mel's mix, very heavy on the peat moss and oak leaves to acidify the soil, and covered with landscape fabric and mulch.

I think it looks really good and should look even better as the plants come in and fill out. The satsuma has also been pretty interesting story. You can see the progression from about a month ago:

To now:
Its almost ready to pick. In addition, I got about 6 very tasty and juicy lemons off the lemon tree and some small limes from the key lime tree. These have all been outside continuously and are still doing fine, although the winter has been pretty mild. Finally, on the citrus front, a few months ago I also bought a little Kaffir Lime and its currently chilling in a pot on the back stoop.

I am going to try to do a new post in a few days on some vegetables and raised beds.

mid-summer update

Due to some serious commitments in my other life, I've been unable to post about the goings-on in the garden. I did some work in the yard today, including taking out the brick walkway because it looked like shit. contractors. When we get around to doing some more serious landscaping for the front yard I've got some plans for a path. I also dug out the front bed to about 10 inches and lined it with weed cloth. I plan to enrich and acidify the soil then fill the bed with blueberry, blackberry, and strawberry plants. I'll do that over the winter though:

The citrus trees are doing well. There's a few small limes, the lemons are growing pretty well, and the Satsuma has one large fruit on it:

We also have grapes (wild) growing across the back fence. Based on the taste and look, I think they're concord but they aren't as sweet as supermarket grapes.

These sweet banana peppers (in the pots) have been producing ok and the melons in the box (watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew) are growing well and putting out runners. They'll probably start to fruit in a few weeks. The pumpkins were a disaster- they started off amazingly well and were the fastest growing plants in the garden by far. Then their stalks started to die and hollow out. I don't know if it was bugs or disease or what, but after a few weeks the main trunk of the plant was detached from the root. I tore them out. The fourth square is lima beans, which are also truckin.

The cucumbers (these are the pickling cukes) have taken off and basically gone up the cage for the cherry tomato plant:

I picked the biggest one a few days ago but I have to take a look at how to pickle things, although I need alot more cucumbers to run a pickling operation:

The peppers have been pretty disappointing. I've gotten some good banana peppers, but only one Santa Fe Grande and a Jalapeno is growing now. No action from the bell peppers, cherry bomb, anaheim, or habanero, and no action from the sweet pickler either after getting a few of them a couple of weeks ago. The exception is the Cayanne peppers, which are growing like mad (I'm drying them for spice):

Specifically on the tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes are producing really well, still. I've gotten about 50 tomatoes off of the plant so far and it is still setting fruit, but now its only fruiting at about 4 feet off the ground (you can see the plant has exploded out of the top of the cage).

The Porter's Dark Cherry have been great and I'll add a bunch more of these plants next season. They grow fast, have a good taste, are prolific and heat tolerant, and are a nice size.

The Roma's have also come in and, despite the weak start, they've been putting out some pretty good fruit also. They aren't as prolific as the dark cherry (nor are they as pretty, they're kind of mottled red and yellow). Because I have alot of Romas and Dark Cherry I've been making tomato sauce and freezing it until I'll have enough to cook it down and make a sauce proper. I get this many tomatoes about every week and a half:

The Black Krim tomatoes were coming along beautifully and were about the size of baseballs, but now they have all cracked (there are about 6 on the plant). Its been because of the weather here- we'll go for a week or so of 100+ temps and no rain, then we'll have a torrential downpour or three in a few day period. The plants take up water faster than the tomatoes grow, so the skin splits. Some of the splits are are only cosmetic (they look like cork), but others have split wide open, like this one:

One thing I've learned is that its necessary to have a bunch of plants going to get a good amount of fruit. Excepting the Cayanne, I'll need multiple plants of each variety and, based on what I've seen so far I think I will focus on the Dark Cherry, Cherry, and Roma tomatoes (and maybe a crack-resistant variety). For the peppers, I'll probably try to grow more banana peppers and maybe another type of jalapeno. I've been happy with the cucumbers also, but I need to add more if I want to have enough to make some pickles (I also plan on pickling the banana peppers).

May Update No. 2

Last week we did some major work in the yard which included planting the sastuma and olive trees in the front yard. We're hoping the satsuma grows enough to take the sun off the front of the house, especially in the morning.

In the backyard, I mulched the garden and the blueberries in order to conserve water. Without the mulch I was soaking the garden every day in the morning and by the time I got home around 4 it was almost completely dry and some of the plants were suffering. A 2 cubic foot bag was perfect for the 5x5 square, which I now water every few days:

And the blueberries:

As a side effect the mulch is going to prevent the veggies that ripen on the ground from rotting. Also regarding water conservation, its been pretty hot here and we've been running the A/C almost all the time. I put a 5 gallon bucket under the drainage pipe and by the next day it was overflowing with condensate. I've been using it to water the trees and the blueberries (instead of the rainwater), and I don't think I'll even need a rain catch at this rate.

I also built two new 2x2 boxes and am starting pumpkins and lima beans:

On to the vegetables. The Porter's Dark Cherry is growing really well also and has set about 15 fruits:

Tonight we cut the first crop of green beans, but here they were beforehand. The yield was pretty disappointing though and I don't know if I will continue to grow the green beans in the future.


The Santa Fe Grand pepper is in the foreground and the Banana pepper is in the background, almost ready to pick.

The corn has put out a few ears also:

I dipped the silks in vegetable oil to suffocate the eggs of the corn earworm, but it remains to be seen if it works. And finally, while not a vegetable, the peach tree is loaded down with about 16 peaches, including this one which is starting to blush:

May update

Flowering Cactus

This is pretty much an excuse to put up some pictures. I don't really have much to say so I'll just describe the pictures I'm posting. At Great Outdoors I bought a Satsuma orange tree. It's on the left, sitting flush on the ground. Its the most cold-hardy of the citrus (outside kumquats) and they are well-suited to Austin. We're going to try to put it in the ground rather than keeping it in pots like we have done with the lemon and key lime.

The Pomegranate tree has started to flower, putting out little bell-shaped blossoms. Actually its pretty neat because we can see pomegranates blooming all over Austin as we drive around, although I think most of them are ornamental, not fruit producing.

The blueberry bushes have also set fruit:

Now onto the garden. I took this picture about two weeks after the last picture. It gives you an idea of how well the four plants are producing:

Unfortunately the pea plants died after this crop. They may have been burned out (because its been 85 degrees without rain for a few days) or they may have just died out because that's all for this season. I had heard that it was really hard to grow snow peas here in Texas, so maybe it was a combination of the both. I ended up pulling the plants and composting them. I didn't bother to replant the square though:

I also trimmed the tomato plants (the indeterminate ones), removing the lower stems up to the ones with the blossoms on them. Some tomatoes have set, mostly on the cherry tomato. sorry for the out-of-focus shot:

The peppers are also growing, including this sweet pickler:


We planted the Mexican plum tree in the front yard this afternoon and are planning on getting the xeriscaping underway in the next few weeks. We went and checked out a rock yard the other day and I checked out a bunch of plants, so I'll try and post that when we get going on it, even though its not technically about the garden.

Fruit Part 2: Bushes

Now, the berries. Blackberries grow quite well in Texas, and the "Sustainable Central Texas" website even says that Blackberries are "the best berries for Central Texas." They need lots of sun, so I started "Ebony King" and Apache varieties down along the chain link fence they can climb up:


I also put in strawberries of the "Chandler" and Sequoia varieties, but these went into the box with the veggies, 4 plants per square foot. I went with 2 varieties of each strawberries and blackberries because I want to see which type performs well.

Finally I put in some blueberries. Like the cherry tree these are kind of a stretch for Central Texas. Blueberries are notable for two things: their preference for cold weather and their need for very acidic soil. The first problem I think I solved by carefully selecting the type of berry. In addition to the "Highbush" and "Lowbush" varieties there is a "Rabbiteye" type which is best for Central Texas. Of all the Rabbiteye types, I chose "Climax," which matches my climate at a recommended 420-700 chilling hours.

The acidity problem is more difficult. Because the blueberries need a very acidic soil, I don't think I can "cheat" and acidify the regular soil. Instead, I'm going to plant the blueberries in containers, and fill those containers with blueberry-friendly peat moss, which was left over from making "mel's mix."



The containers are placed behind the square foot bed, but they are suprisingly light, so I can move them as the sunlight dictates.