Tyler Azalea Trail

Last weekend, Randy, Daniel, and I took a day off and went to Tyler to see the azaleas.  Daniel and Randy drove and we had Wendy's on the way.  The scenery was beautiful.  Just getting out of town for a few hours was refreshing.

My favorite picture

Black petunias

Yellow and pink petunias

My two favorite men

Watering the flowers was fun.

We called this turtle shell plant.

Very tall trees

Daniel taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking a picture of me.

:)  :)  :)

Black and lime green petunias

Watering cans at the well in someone's backyard

The well was lots of fun.

That's some fancy landscape.

A bottle tree

Garden Marker Update

As previously posted, I made signs for the garden.  Unfortunately, they didn't hold up as well as I wanted them to.  So... it's back to the drawing board.  This time I'm going to try painting each sign with acrylic paint.  Hopefully the paint won't fade in the outdoors. Check back later for a progress report.

Sign first placed in garden

Before going to the garden

After a couple of weeks in the garden

Painted stick

Petunias

When first planted, the petunias were red and white peppermint and dark purple and white peppermint.

After growing together for a couple of weeks, the colors start to mix.

In some of them, the white took over.

Purple on white...

Or white on purple?

We never know what colors will be waiting in the petunia patch, but it's guaranteed to be beautiful.

The Good in the Garden

Brussel Sprouts - Eating every couple of days.  Still have producing plants from last year and healthy plants grown from seed last fall

Potatoes - A foot and a half to two feet tall

Swiss Chard - Really pretty electric yellow and red stems (will hate to pick it)

Begonias - They like the temps and moisture

Purple Cabbage - Four 1"X1" plants now are over two feet in diameter

Carrots - Most came up, but they are a little droopy form all of the moisture

Kentucky Wonders - Almost every seed came up

Tomatoes - Romas doing well and Early Girl.  One wild Roma came up from last year

Petunias - Really pretty red and white and purple and white varieties

Gerbera Daisies - Beautiful flowers.  They seem to do a lot better in the ground than in pots

Blackberries - Enormous plants now, many flowers and pre-berries.

Peach trees - All three have peaches.  Nets are up.

Apple Tree - New Granny Smith.  I didn't buy a 2nd tree (which is recommended for pollination) but we have about a dozen apple buds

Stay tuned for further updates.  :)

Rough Week In The Garden

From Randy, A.K.A. The Farmer:

The past week has probably been my worst week as far as the garden.  Everything was doing magnificently (no late cold freeze and moderate temps) until I noticed that my Roma Italian beans were being sawed off at the ground.  

I thought I had cutworms and put out cornmeal and flour (which is what was recommended for cutworms).  However, after watching closely for several days, what I really had was an infestation of rolly-pollys (pill bugs).  

They love a well composted garden and found a home in mine.  Although they generally eat decaying organic matter, they are also prone to eating tender roots and stems of new plants.  After the green beans, the chewed up the butternut squash sprouts and two tomato plants.  

I have them under control now, but there is no way to get back the month of growth that had been invested in getting them from seed to young plants.  

I can go buy the plants at the nursery, which I will probably do for the squash, but I will just have to plant warmer weather beans/peas in place of the Romas.  After the attack of the rolly pollys, we had that monstrous wind and rain storm a couple of nights ago and it wiped out half of my Bok Choy and onions and flooded several other things (which I am hoping will recover).  

My ground in the back slopes downward to the alley, so I built the furrows up so that they would drain well.  The rain and wind was so intense that the ground soil started moving downhill and I don't have any furrows anymore - everything is flat.  By being flat, the plants just sat in water and mud for about two days.