Strawberries and Cream

Strawberries are one of the tastiest things, aside from banannas of course, that you can put on something, like angelfood cake, waffles, fork. Unfortunately the stores still can't come close to the flavor of home grown. I know, it has to do with picking them so they are still good a week later when you actually buy the thing but there has to be a better way.
When we get back I'll have to go to the store and get some cream to whip up since our strawberries will be ripe and hopefully not eaten by birds or squirrels or whatever else might want to wanter into the yard and devour them.
I thought about netting them or putting them under glass but I have no netting or glass structure that would work so all I can do is hope and see what happens. Same goes with the beets. They have flowered to some degree but I don't know if they are being polinated or not or if the flower stalks will produce seeds. They seem to be very reactive to not getting enough water, flopping over and all. I guess I'll know soon enough.

Garded Update

Planted gerbera daisies Thursday and they seem to be acclimating well. They are hanging out near the other daisies, dianthus, and snap dragons. The cilantro is shading them all well from the soon to be hot mid to late mid day sun.
The cilantro has taken over areas where we really didn't expect to see them but in the end it's probably a good thing.
The lemon grass hasn't been planted anywhere yet but we're still thinking of somewhere it would go well and that cats won't trample it.
We aslo cleaned out the bricks in the south end of the back flower bed. The ants living there didn't like it much but I think I killed their queen and their entire way of life shattered. I haven't seen any for some days now.
It finally rained last evening/this morning. It was much needed and will keep everything growing well. I just hope the rain keeps up while we're on our cruise.

Flowering

I know everyone out there has things like irises and roses blooming, not that I left the rose out, but here are a few of my less common blooms.
By co-worker demand we have my lettuce flowers. The striped white flowers bloomed first about two weeks and were shortly followed by the yellow.

Wild Texas onions love my back yard and since I can eat them they are allowed to live for a while.

For the life of me I couldn't remember the name of this plant. Not a very common want of local gardeners, solomon's seal is a reliable spring guest.

And the rose.

My scented geranium is flowering and sending out runners.

The beet plants from last year are preparing to go all out with flowers. I just hope they make seeds before it gets too hot.

Fort Worth Plant Swap

Again I didn't quite make it.
I followed the directions on the site and didn't see any such group in sight.
This may be due to the time I went by which was a little later in the day, 12ish, but I figured with lunch and all being eaten that someone would be there around lunch. There was also some kind of zoo walk or something going on and the traffic was terrible. The zoo parking itself filled up and they were turning cars away. Many other lots in the area were roped off.
Nest season I guess I'll just have to arrive earlier and beat whatever traffic comes up. I'll also have more plants to swap which I guess is a win-win situation.

Fort Worth Plant Swap 4-10-10

It's time for the Spring edition of the Fort Worth Plant Swap.
To avoid the problem of last season they have decided to hold it near the zoo again.
I have been wanting to go down that waw and look around for a while now and this is a good chance to do that.
We will be bringing purple irises, handmade necklaces and earrings, and a variety of seeds including peppers, cilantro, and onion. I don't know if they will all sprout but I know some of them should, especially the peppers.
We're looking for plants that will go well in the current setup to fill some holes.

Spring Clean

Spring cleaning is a yearly task that can really make your home a pleasant place to return to. Especially when you have just picked up that last leaf and brushed away the last piece of dirt, the look of a clean manicured yard is wonderful.
The major problems we came across this year were the ants and having to clean up the oak tree since there were a number of branches that broke in the snowfalls.
A good bit of the color came back on it's own either from seed or from plants that lived through the winter.
We planted seeds last week and the beans, sunflowers, and carrots have already sprouted.
I still haven't gotten a strawberry yet and the fig tree is taunting me with figs that will probably fall off in the next heavy rain.