2025 Blackberries

Did yard work today, the first full mow of the season.  I got some trimmer string and rewound the trimmer.  So much easier to use than the brush cutter.  The plastic blades though really aren't that sturdy.  Cut the mint a little but really it doesn't grow very tall so it was literally just the top leaf or two.

Speaking of growing though, the blackberry in front around the tree had this little guy growing on the vine.  This is the first of who knows how many blackberries we'll get from the plants.  If they all turn out to be this small though I may just kill it.  It's pretty thorny for such small berries.  It needs to be at least 4 times this size for it to make the cut.  No pun intended due to those thorns of death.

Calling back to the mint though, when the yard was cut (and thus the mint) the fragrance was not overpowering. It was more a hint of mint in the air.  Pretty nice actually.

Update on the fig tree:  The little branches are getting significantly bigger.  Not quite as fast as I'd like but getting there.  Still removing bottom leaves occasionally and it's working pretty well.  I can tell the difference between the branches I remove leaves on and those I don't.

Gathering at the Bird Feeder

As far as I can tell these are house finches.  These are all female though since the male has a distinct tinge of read on his breast. I don't think I've ever seen this many birds on the feeder at one time though.  I have been keeping up with making sure there is always seed there so I really shouldn't be surprised. 

Among the other birds we've seen flying through are blue jays, cardinals, and mockingbirds.  Flying above and around the are there are often turkey vultures, ducks, herons, and some other kind of smaller raptor, probably a hawk of some sort.

The seed we get is relatively fresh since the spillage has created a small sprouted forest.  It will be mowed down this weekend so somewhat short lived I guess but I wasn't trying to grow my own seed anyway.

Looking forward to mowing the mint though.  We'll see just how minty the air will get.  Our friend who gave us the  mint says when he mows it a nice aroma that fills the air.  We really don't have a lot of mint though so I'm not expecting it to be overwhelming.  I might try to reign it in a little though so it doesn't really become a huge problem.  I do need to get the edging done though before we take off on our trip. 

Fortunately we have friends coming to take care of the house and cats, mainly the cats.  We've been prepping for them and have made several dishes that we've frozen for them to have plenty to eat.  Still need to get that manual put together so they have a go by for anything they need to know.  Missing the cats already and haven't even left.

Lemon Mint

We got two kinds of mint that I put under the fig tree.  Mint can be hard to get to grow sometimes but when it does it can take over.

On the plus side it can help keep some bugs down like fleas. We haven't had a problem with fleas as of yet but it can't hurt to prevent them in the first place.

The mint shown here, I believe, is lemon mint.  I could be wrong but that's what I'm told we were given.  The other mint we have is spearmint.  These have spread out a little but still not very far. 

The fig tree is still coming back nicely and has several shoots now.  Taken off two leaves so far and not a lot of change. Will wait a bit longer before trying it again.  Maybe it's not quite big enough to send enough to that sprout to make a difference.

The green onion is blooming nicely. Several poof balls of flowers have opened up and some fairly large ones.  Also planted a red onion among the green ones.  It was sprouting anyway.

I was able to remove a lot of weeds recently.  The best time to do weed removal is right after a good rain or possibly during a rain if it is late and will get dark before it's over.  Instead of having to fight the weeds to pull them out, most of them came out fairly easily if not immediately.  A couple of the harder ones to pull were the dandelions.  They have a tap root that can go down for a while even on a relatively small plant.

Spring Fig Growth

As you can tell the fig is finally growing this season.  There are currently 5 shoots and if you look closely at the image you can see a sixth possible location at the base of the freeze damaged area.  The temperatures got super low over the winter and severely damaged most of the plant.  Fortunately though I was able to get it acclimated to the soil and it was able to root well and settle in.

The cold damage is clearly visible here as the bark can be seen split up the sides.  These branches are dead but the root system is still good.  You can also see a mint plant growing right up there around the base of the tree.  Wasn't sure how hardy it was going to be but it's spread quite a bit.  There are 2 kinds that we planted but I really couldn't tell you what they were.

Something I learned while at the previous house in Arlington was to encourage growth to pick the lower leaves.  Will try this later today to see if it helps on such a small plant.  It doesn't have much to work with at the moment so I'm going to go slowly with only 1 leaf on 1 shoot.  Probably this front one in the picture since it has some nice leaves growing in already.  That back one i think might be in trouble if I did it to him.  Of course if this works like I'm hoping it does then they will probably all have a bit of trimming before it's all done.  I will want to remove the dead limbs before too long as well so bugs don't start thinking it's a dead tree to break down.  Also limit access to the more tender insides.

The fig tree is just the beginning of what we have growing in the yard though.  There's more in pots and up front that will be shown shortly.

Lovely New Fig

My new fig tree is doing well.  It originally came with figs already on it.  A couple of them have fallen off but for the most part the figs have hung on.

To plant it I of course dug a hole.  I've done work with landscapers so I have a good idea of how big.  Typically you want a hole at least twice as big as the pot it came in.  I dug out a little more than that because our soil is clay.  If you don't know anything about clay, it doesn't do well with water and drainage.  It's also hard to dig in.  So, the dirt (mostly clay) I dug out, I mixed with a bag of potting soil.  In the end it was still a bit hard since clay will dominate a mixture down to around 20 percent.

Then I put it back in the hole until it was about deep enough for the plant with the soil ball to sit a little above the previous ground elevation.  Then I back filled the rest of the dirt mixture on top making a mound and watered it for nearly an hour, saturating the dirt so it would settle in.

I have since added even more dirt from an old pot to further give it nutrients and ability to absorb water and retain it.  I water it daily dissolving the bits of clay that I wasn't patient enough to mix in.  The resulting water slurry I'm sure it filling in the gaps that remained in the hole.

After visiting some friends a little south of us we got some mint that I planted on top of the dirt around the fig tree.  At first it was still wilting but now there are new leaves popping in on some of the stems.

Medicinal Mexico

One of the highlights of our trip was the medicinal section of the botanical gardens.
Among the plants were mint and rue but the guide didn't let us stay very long since we were already behind schedule before we even got to the gardens.

Weeding

I have been putting it off for way too long. There are more weeds in the flower beads and garden than I have plants that I want. I finally took action and pulled for a few hours.
The center bed, the round one, is now weed free and fortunately most of the plants that I have put in there are doing fine. The mint for instance has taken off and is in about a third of the bed.
At first I thought the lavender in the top section was dead but it apparently only had a few dead leaves. Our first lavender died from overwatering, a flood really.
The brick area was not too bad but had a lot of grass growing over the top. I should probably raise the brick border a little to keep more of the grass runners out but alas I don't have any more bricks.
The new mower is fortunately working great and the grass is trimmed neatly and looking great.

Bell Peppers and Papaya

I have managed to keep the bell pepper plants alive and well throug the heat and they have rewarded me with a few flowers. No, there aren't any peppers yet but you have to have flowers first anyway. It's about time I thinned them again since many of the plants leaves are touching.

The other plant I have managed to sprout, though nothing more, is the papaya. Once again I just planted seeds from the fruit from the store and *POP* up they came. Ok, so I watered them a lot too, but then again who doesn't water their plants at least some of the time? They're planted along with some spearmint and zinias. I don't think these plants are specifically on the companion planting guides that I've seen but I don't know what kind of plants they are anyway.

The only problem I see in the near future is the unbearable heat that is forcasted to be coming our way, 90's to low 100's... Why me, why me, and why everyone else who has to bear the heat of summer, why?

Front Garden Layout

There's more to it, but below are pictutes from the roof again.

This time it's of the front gardens. I've placed them so they are in order. The top edge of the top picture is the street we live on and the right side is our driveway. The tree shown is a 9 year old oak that came with the house. I can only estimate it's age from what our neighbor tells us.

The bottom of the bottom picture is the walkway leading up to the front door. The right side is our rock garden and the left side next to it has our pepper plants, mums, hyacinth and iris.

The planting strip along the upper part of the gravel walk has lamb's ear, parsley, lettuce, cabbage and sage. The lettuce can be seen in both pictures.

The large cloud of yellow is our fennel. I really should figure out something to make with it before it dies off...

On the corner of the drive and street there are two small lavender bushes. Too bad most of the plants aren't recognizable here.

The middle round area in the top picture is where we decided to put the mint, chives, and other assorted herbs.