Fall Watermelon

Cute little guy....

Has grown a lot bigger since I took this photo. Nearly double the size in fact.  That's still a pretty small watermelon though.

The seeds were planted back in July and the vine has been growing ever since.  At first the cottontails nibbled at it and broke off parts here and there. When I went to go check on the garden after an extended trip I hadn't expected to find much beyond happy green onion plants.  They always seem to do well.  There is another melon growing that is now about half the size of the large one and two itty bitty ones trying to start out.  I doubt they will make it before the first frost and the end of the growing season.  If they do make it of course I won't be upset.

The plumeria is the only other plant out there that I'm keeping a sharp watch on.  Wanting to see if it will make any flowers this year. Last year I had it in a bit of shade and it made a few flowers.  This year it was in full sun plus a bit shining off of the green house.  It made no flowers but the heat I'm sure was part of that. 

I need to be out gardening more I think and getting some fall/winter plants going. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

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.