Garden Bunny

He is fluffy, destroyer of gardens. But he's so cute!!!

Looked it up and I'm pretty sure he's an eastern cottontail. I don't know for sure but if he is then he's still a baby. Maybe a month old if that. He's able to hop around the area and likes to chew bits of vegetation.  I put more cover over the area made of weeds and already dead plants that were there anyway.  Want to make sure they are safe from predators.  We have several large hunting birds in the area and the brush deters them.  The bunnies have dug through the cloth planters as you can see on the bottom of the image.  So much destruction.  The green onions though seem to be safe from chewing though.  There is plenty of mint growing so there is a good bit for them to eat.  I've let many plants grow in the back and it's perfect for a nibbling little family.

This isn't the first time we've had rabbits hanging out where we live though.  In the previous apartment we were at there was a family living in the large table cloth we used to cover the outside plants on the patio.  We were on the bottom floor so the bunnies thought it was left just for them.  It was warm and covered and there were fresh plants growing just for them to nibble.  We didn't even know they were there until it started warming up and we moved the cloth.  Mom and three babies hopped out. One of the babies even coming inside for a second.  We shooed it out to mom where she waited and appreciatively hopped away with her children once they were all accounted for.

What unexpected residents have you had in your garden?

Cactus Fruit

We recently got a cactus fruit (tuna) from a Too Good To Go bag. It was really seedy, even more so than I would have thought. The flavor was good though. This is where you would naturally get these fruits. You probably don't want to stick your hand in there to get them though.  The pads are thorny but the fruit is also. They have to de-burr them to make them edible.  

We once wild harvested some of these to make cactus fruit jelly. Probably could have done a preserver or jam but the jelly was what we had in mind and stuck to it.  It came out really nice but was a lot of work and I had stickers in my hands for months. If we do that again I will have to figure out how to get them and properly remove all of the bits to make it safe.

At the local Fiesta Mart they process the pads too and make strips out of them to add to dishes or pickle. I imagine that is even harder. We ended up discarding most of the tuna because there were so many seeds.  I kept some of course because I grow things. If there's ever been anything more consistent it is that I grow things. It doesn't matter if they are supposed to be grown sometimes.  Bamboo in pots though, I'm not trying to ruin the world with the stuff.

We just finished a podcast episode on In this episode talking about how gardening can be stress-reducing, and how it can inspire creativity. My wife doesn't feel quite the same way about gardening since it's hard to see an end. I find the harvest the occasional end to parts of the garden. Some parts may not really have an end but rather a new chapter.

St Augustine Grass Seed

You and every other person who has wanted a quick lush lawn of St Augustine grass has been told that you can't get it by planting seed.  Some even say that St Augustine grass doesn't make seeds. Some say the seeds St Augustine grass does make are not viable. The truth of the matter is that St Augustine grass does make seeds and plenty of them in the right conditions. Getting a nice lush yard of the stuff though is better handled through just installing turf.

These were hand harvested from some St Augustine plugs that decided to make some seeds.  These are from one stalk and it was a stalk I had previously mowed down and this was what remained of it.

I got about a square foot of turf from a reliable and healthy lawn and transplanted it in various places in my back yard. I split it up into 6 pieces and plugged them in.  My hope is that it will spread as St Augustine does and take over the yard. This may take a while since it seems to spread about 4-8 inches a year with the occasional long runner which can go over a foot.  It's these runners that I hope will start proliferating the yard and set up new areas of St Augustine.  After a while I also plan to pull plugs and spread manually.  Within 5 years I hope to have a full yard. We'll see about the front eventually.

For now I have planted these in some dirt inside to see if they will sprout.  I'm curious how viable the seeds really are.  There is definitely some promise here though as most of these are full plump seeds.

If you've ever had success with St Augustine seeds please let me know.  I'd love to see how it turned out.

Flower Cluster

This time we have a flower cluster. Typically cacao trees grow more than one flower from a single flower pad. To keep a flower pad in good condition you never pull fruit off of the tree. That will damage a pad and may never grow flowers from that location again if it is damaged too much.

This is still the first tree but if you look closely this is flowers 4,5,6, and 7. Still trying to get the second tree big enough that it will want to flower.

Both trees are currently in the same area and of course indoors. The heat this week is in the mid 100's so definitely not what these trees need to be happy and healthy.

The strawberry plants on the other hand are coming back like it's spring. I had nearly given up on them but kept watering anyway.  Now it looks like, even though they died back quite a bit all the way down to the dirt, they are all coming back with new growth. At first it was just one of the plants with a small green shoot of leaves but now the whole pot is nearly filled in at the ground level. I can only hope that this is going to mean they will overwinter well if I bring them inside.   They are in a pot after all.  The runners we propagated however did not fare so well and have not come back. Much of what we planted out front though is still good. Our basil plants are bushy and getting bigger after I trimmed back the flowers.

The fig tree in the back is also bouncing back nicely.  I had figured the heat would keep it down until September or October once it started cooling down but the heat seems to have kicked it into high gear and it's shooting leaves up all over.

Claude Has Another Flower

This time Claude has a more developed flower. It really opened up and showed us how big they are going to be. This is of course zoomed in a little but it's easily visible and showy. Looking forward to when it has hundreds of these guys blooming at a regular basis.

The trunk is still a little small to be carrying fruit but flowers are always a good sign that the conditions are right for producing.

Some of the other flowers we have around the garden are our daylilies and of course the green onion is a regular feature. One of the green onion blooms was almost 100 percent pollinated and is currently full of seed pods nearly ready to harvest. The bean plants are also regularly blooming and making beans. They are trailing up some of the closer plants to them and spreading fast.

The new job has kept me busy and not a lot of time to focus on keeping up here but I'm still going.  The next thing I'm going to plant are some dragonfruit seeds.  I hear they are relatively easy to sprout and grow.  Don't be fooled by the one that shows the fruit being soaked in water and sprouting though. It's all fake.  That would just rot in the water and destroy the seeds.  The plant also doesn't grow like that. It's a sprawling plant that loves good soil and rocks. So hardy.

Claude Has Flowered

It's been over eight years since I started growing cacao trees again.  My first attempt in 2014 wasn't so good, probably because I didn't have as much information on exactly what a cacao tree wanted for good growing conditions.

Claude has gone though several pot and dirt changes and additions over they years.  This little flower means he is getting the right light, water, and nutrients he wants to finally flower and one day fruit. I don't expect fruit for some time still.  This is the first flower and he will probably need another flowering cacao tree to produce fruit.  I say probably because the majority of cacao trees do not self pollinate even though they have both male and female portions to their flowers. There are some cacao trees that can pollinate themselves but it is much less common.  Is Claude one of these?  I have no idea.

Fortunately I have another cacao tree, Claudette.  She's like Claude but smaller.  I don't know if they are the same kind of cacao or not since I haven't seen either of them fruit yet.  The leaves of course are so similar that it wouldn't help.  I believe they were from the same purchase of pods but I got 4 different kinds of pods and planted almost all of the seeds.  Even then the cross pollination will give variants even in the same pod so there's that.

Long story short is that the long story of growing my own chocolate is still a long way from being realized.  This is only one of the many steps toward that goal.

If you look closely at the bud it almost looks like a cacao pod in miniature.  If it had been pollinated and this was a pod in progress it would be in this shape and keep getting bigger.  I was told that even when they are the size of a tennis ball they aren't considered fruit yet.  They are still just baby cherelle. It isn't until the fruit is almost full size before you can really expect it to succeed. Before that it could still just fall right off.

The color and shape of the pod are unique to each tree.  No two trees are exactly the same due to the cross pollination of trees to make more seeds and trees.  Trees next to each other may make very different pods but both could be ripe. One might need to turn red while another is ripe at yellow. This is where a farmer really has to know his trees.  The shape of the pods are also specific to the tree.  Anywhere from a little bigger than a softball to bigger than a football.  This is why the fruit grows on the trunk and not the branches as the weight would break off branches.

Harvesting fruit also has to be done by hand since you have to protect the pads where the fruit grows.  If damaged it could stop flowering from that pad for good.  There's another spot I'm watching that may produce flowers too but not sure yet.  There's something going on there at least.

Claudette Coming Home

Soon I will be working from home.  I've been with my current company almost ten years but saw an opportunity that I really thought would be an interesting career change and applied, not really thinking they would hire me but if you never ask they can never tell you yes.

I'll be starting at the end of the month and this pretty little lady will need a place to live at the house.  She's not super big still so I hope one of the corners will be suitable enough but the lighting might be an issue.  Claude already has two grow lights and the basil plant near him is doing good so I think there is plenty of light there.  The problem comes with space though.  The basil plant is already sitting on a desk that needs to be clear for working.  There is no way Claudette can live there and be functional. 

She has a base for her pot though so location is a lot easier than Claude which has no base and instead sits on feet and drains to a mat if there is drainage out of the bottom of the pot. The mat is textured to absorb some of the water if it does and the bottom of the mat is rubber so it doesn't leak though to the carpet.  A nice industrial type mat.

I also have another pot in the office (not shown here).  So much to plant so little space in my home office.  That pot might be going out into the greenhouse and have veggies or a small tree.  It's a decent size pot.  What do you think would be good to grow in an approximately 2 gallon pot? 

Claudette Really Filling Out

Claudette is filling out nicely.  Soon she will be back to her old self and who knows how long it will be until she flowers.  Will possibly be able to take her home at that point or maybe just move pollen from one tree to the next.  Will just have to see how everything goes.

With the greenhouse in the yard now some of the more summery plants are now starting to pop back up.  I think it's turmeric breaking ground again in several places. Not the one up front though.  Although the day lily is still going strong.  Will see how cold it has to get before it kills it back for the year.  I remember even in Southeast Texas they would die back and come up in the spring.

Several other seeds have been planted in the green house to see what might sprout.  I know they say you can start seeds in a green house but I've never been able to find out.  At the house in Arlington the "green house" was more like a drafty covered porch.

I've got the study pretty well cleaned up and Claude is loving the new light setup.  I have the grow lights mounted to the wall finally and they are set up on an intermittent timer. Day is on 1.5 hours and off 0.5 hours.  Night is the opposite.  It keeps the leaves from burning quite so much it seems.

Full Moons of the 2026 Seasons

 

Super proud of this one.  I've been playing around with ai photo generation and with a bit of help and formatting research came up with this one for the moons of 2026 by season.

There is no blue moon this coming year but also no December moon for the seasons either.  That will be tacked on to next year's list as the first full moon of winter.  The next blue moon is May 20 of 2027.

So once in a blue moon has a chance again that month.

Greenhouse for Winter



I always wanted a greenhouse.  In Arlington we never got around to having a nice greenhouse.  It was instead a covered enclosed patio that was crumbling and the roof had a hole in it where rain would come through. This one is still missing a window but I have the manufacturer informed and expect they will send us the piece soon and I can just pop it in.

As you can see there are already plants in it and I expect to put in shelves real soon to add even more plant storage and humidity.  The key to a good greenhouse is humidity.  This guy seals up really well and I expect to have it going in full swing in no time.

So far I have about a dozen pots in there although half of them have no plants to speak of.  The one seen in the picture though has green onion, turmeric, pineapple, and the remains of a tomato plant.  I don't expect the tomato plant to bounce back though.  It got in too late after the last freeze to help. I also have an aloe in the back (lots of moisture in there and twice the size as when I bought it). In the middle left another turmeric and day lily pot.  One of such is still up at the front of the house and a good enough size pot that I expect it should be fine.  Winter isn't usually harsh enough to kill, just enough to kill back.

I'm hoping to get some more interesting plants growing in there as well since humidity is one thing I never really got previously so this should be interesting.

Winter Garden

Getting the gardening going in the winter this year.  We purchased two raised garden bags which have eight - one cubic foot areas each in a 2x4 grid.  The packets are laid out in the order in which we planted them.

The seeds are a bit old but something should still sprout.  We purchased these seeds back in 2013 and most of them have at least an 85% viability rating.  A few even higher.

My wife asked if that means they are all done for now since it's been 12 years.  The percent viability is at the time they expect you to be planting these seeds.  It's more like a half life though.  Every year less seeds will probably be viable and sure eventually they will probably all be useless and not sprout but even 12 years isn't so long for seeds.

There are records of seeds remaining viable for over a hundred years.  Some of the oldest seeds to germinate did so over a thousand years.  One source claims a seed was over ten-thousand years old and was still able to be grown into a flowering specimen.  Not sure how they dated that one but that's what they are claiming.  Personally I can easily believe the hundred year old seeds but past that I think it's more of a guess how long the seed has been around.

Claudette2 Hanging In There

So far she hasn't died yet.  There is still some limberness and some of the tips are still green.  I trimmed back all of the leaves since they were dry and brittle anyway.  The leaf stems fell off but so far the branches haven't followed suit.  

There is a little thinness to some of the branches and they might not all survive the ordeal but I'm still hopeful that she'll pull through.  All I can do now is water and wait and see.  I have to keep the ground from drying out and killing the root.

Clautedde1 however is still doing pretty good.  There are a couple leaves that have turned but that always happens anyway and isn't necessarily a sign that there is a problem.  What I'm watching now is the new leaf growth.  There are a couple new leaves popping in and I just want to make sure they continue growing.  If that happens then we're all good.

I did plant some tomato plants in that pot and they've already sprouted.  I expect them to die though and add nutrients to the soil.  Also the English ivy I put in is still green after a couple weeks.  Waiting to see how this affects things if at all.  Usually there is a little root but English ivy tends to sprawl and cling to things, possibly the outside of the pot.  If on the off chance Claudette2 doesn't make it, I have some other tree seeds waiting in the wings to swoop in for the pot.

Cactus Bush, For Real?

 

I had thought about taking a picture of this bush myself on my way home from work.  Currently you see more bush than cactus.  In fact you can only see about 5 of the paddles sticking out of a much larger bush than you can see here.  This is actually a street view image copied and posted as a jpg.

About a year ago there was no bush and it was just a cactus on the side of the road.

If you had seen this as an image on social media would you have expected it to be AI?  We watched a video recently on how to tell if an image is AI or not and this one might at first hit some of those alerts if you don't realize what you're looking at.  For instance the shadows on the inlet protection walls look a little  off except for the fact that the wall is vertical that the shadow is falling on.  This was probably taken around 8:00 in the morning in the late spring, looking at the grass and angle of the sun. The grass has been recently mown but the bush is obviously growing well.  The sun shadow is also mostly to the East and is high enough in the sky for a fairly steep shadow in the inlet so this is well past winter.

Do you have any pictures that at first seem like they would be AI but are pictures that you took yourself?

Claudette2 Stressed

So at the office I have had 2 smaller cacao trees growing in the same pot.  It was about time for them to be in their own pots but this really puts stress on them.  The larger one is doing fine but this smaller one that was continually living in the shadow of the other is struggling.  There are a couple new leaves pushing out but for the most part i think it will loose ALL of its other leaves.

I trimmed some of them back in an effort to reduce what it was trying to keep going but I think it may have been too little too late for them.  This is after a week of repotting and is better than losing all of the leaves on day 1 or 2.  It has always struggled though to even put out the smallest of leaves in the other pot, the leaves being 1/4 the size of the other tree.

The soil is still moist but not wet and draining out.  Added a little today to make sure there was enough moisture but it's hard to tell exactly what is needed at this point.  I guess I'll just have to be patient and see how things go.  Probably stop by here tomorrow as well to see how many leaves are left and assess the progress and state of the little tree.  There is still plenty of hope though.  I've heard of cacao trees that have come back even after a year of losing all of their leaves.  They really are resilient trees.

Texas Winter Preparation

 

Winter is coming to Texas.  It got down almost to freezing yesterday in the DFW area. The cities further North probably did freeze briefly.  Just means it's time to start to think about winterizing your more tender plants.  I've always said that I only want to plant things outside that can survive every winter.  Unfortunately not every winter is the same so I can only do my best.  Also the longer a plant has had time to acclimate, the better equipped it is to survive a harsher winter.

Some plants just have to come in of course.  One of our friends had a dozen or more plumeria plants which they kept on casters so they could easily bring them in every winter.  There is no way they would survive outside being tropical plants (trees) even though they have pretty sturdy branches.  We plan to one day have a greenhouse that would effectively make it possible to have a permanent home outsideish but in the mean time it's coming inside for the winter.  Just have to keep the cats away while it's there.

Going to try to protect the fig tree better this winter so it can hopefully come back strong next year.  It has struggled all year to make the few leaves it had and never had a chance to even think about fruiting.  If these new, more tender, branches can be kept safe though we have a chance to really get it going and have the tree we wanted in the first place.  Otherwise I may just have to dig it up and start over.

Beef and Bittermelon

A friend grew some bitter melons, too many to use by himself, and shared some of the harvest with us.  With the word bitter in the name of the vegetable I was warry. That's when having a wife who can find anything, including good recipes, is priceless.  She found this recipe making a stir fry with the bitter melon but more beef than bitter.

Part of making it less bitter is removing the white inner pulp, the source of the bitter.  I didn't want to remove it all though since that is also where a lot of the benefits of the bitter melon reside.  It's bitter for a reason and a little bitter is a good thing.  With the sauce you make for this dish it really compliments it.

We started by slicing the beef thinly for stir frying.  This was boneless chuck roast. We marinated it for an hour in a mixture of corn starch, for thickening, baking soda, for tenderizing, oyster sauce, mirin, and dark soy sauce, for flavor, and a little extra water to keep it from burning to the bottom.

The bitter melon we sliced crossways to add surface area so the sauce could really coat it, it is pretty bitter if you don't offset it. We added garlic, some black beans for texture, more mirin, sugar, more soy, sesame oil and pepper.  You know your taste better than anyone so play around with the quantities to see what suits you best.  In the end there should be 1/2 to 3/4 cup of added stuff.  Otherwise it can get saucy, unless you want more saucy.  It's good over rice.

Fall Weather

Fall is here and I couldn't be happier with the weather.  It's cooling down and the rain is still only intermittent.  Plants everywhere are loving it too.  This little guy was just growing away in this planter near one of the shopping centers nearby.

Cooler weather also means less need to water so much to keep things from dying.  Not too little though, so much still has months to grow and become hardy for the winter.  We have turmeric that I still need to figure out what to do with.  The fig tree I plan to mulch so it stays warm over the winter.  Probably also get something to go over it so it might have a good start in the spring as well.  Early to rise early to fruit.  No figs this year after its near death experience last winger.

The plumeria will have to come inside when it gets too cold.  Also have to figure out when that is going to be.  This is the first time I've gotten one of these to grow so well and not die after a week.  I can't have all of the plants people give me die immediately.  That wouldn't be very encouraging.

I have a few seeds that I want to get going too.  One is a pine seed I got from a nice tree outside a hotel.  I intend to plant it where it can really take off and not destroy my foundation or water/irrigation lines.  So much to do and no time to do it in.

Fall Tomatoes

I have to wonder what tomato I got these seeds out of.  I thought they were more round than these.  All of the ones here are kind of pointy and long.

I guess the cross pollination came into play here.  This happens a lot in producing fruit.  Apples particularly are planted in areas with varieties that you eat and varieties you plant because they give off a lot of pollen. This makes it unlikely that the seed you get out of an apple will produce a tree that will give you the same kind of apple.

At any rate they look good and are a decent size.  The one in the back should be good to eat tomorrow and the two in front there in a day or two after that. Several green tomatoes are here and there and I expect it to continue through early fall.

Another seed I got recently is a pine seed from a hotel pine tree I was near.  The tree was trimmed a lot and not too tall but it looked nice.  Thinking about planting it at the edge of the HOA lot where the drainage goes.  Pine trees usually have a pretty good root system and there near the lake will keep it in good shape through the hot summers we get here.

Hibiscus Flowers

We were recently at Beard Park in Little Elm. Apparently the area combined several smaller settlements to make a town, eventually with a dry goods store, post office, and more.

There is a replica house and post office there, unfortunately with a wasp infestation.  They left everyone alone though so I guess it isn't too bad really. Likely they were attracted to such flowers like the hibiscus shown here.

Growing up we had a lot of hibiscus plants.  This was another of my grandfather's breeding projects.  I really don't remember the colors we had, I was little and that was probably the least of my concerns.  Everyone knows that lizards and garden snakes are much more important.  Our yard really did have a lot of both of these. The anole were all over the house and green houses.  As for the snakes all you usually had to do was turn over one of the larger rocks to find one curled up resting.

This was only one of the colors they had out at the park.  Got a few seeds of course to see what cross pollination occurred out there. There may have been even more hibiscus flowers in the area. Pollination can happen over fairly large distances and with the number of pollinators in the area the likeliness is pretty good. We'll see what pops up.

Hummingbirds in the Garden

We got a hummingbird feeder for the backyard and they're already hovering around it.  The most we've seen at a time is two so far.

They were already attracted to our yard with our plumeria plant so it wasn't really a surprise to see them. One of them has a red throat.  Not this one though.  I haven't looked into it but I'm guessing it's a male thing?  Will have to look it up later.

Ok, it's later and yep it's a male thing.  The females have no red coloring.  It might be a mated pair then that we're seeing come around.  That would make sense since they aren't chasing each other off.  Hummingbirds can be territorial and aggressive to interlopers.

The cats have taken a keen interest in the hummingbirds coming around and have jumped at the window more than once trying to catch them.  We have since bought another hanger for the feeder and moved it further into the yard.  That also keeps the other birds away from it and less likely to scare each other away.