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.

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.

Our Late December Tomato

Our tomato plants really didn't do very well until it got quite a bit colder.  Fortunately the freeze held off until we had a few tomatoes on the vine.  This is the best of them.  We still had to pick it green but as you can see it's turning color nicely.

We talked with one of our friends about tomatoes and how you can pick them green if you need to and let them ripen off the vine.  He told us about when he was little and his family had a garden.  They would have a ton of tomato plants and have to pick many of them green before the frost hit.  They would then stick the green tomatoes under their beds until they turned red.  Then they would go sell the red ones at the markets in the winter.  Some of the tomatoes would take weeks to turn.  This guy actually took a couple weeks as well before it got to this state.  Still waiting a little longer for a better color but I'm hopeful.

Borage and Onion

Our onion and borage have decided it was time to start growing again. The onion we left in there from fall so it could finish getting bigger and the borage was self seeded and much bigger than last season's crop. It will make a nice addition to this weeks salads.

 

Of course the bed they are growing in is our least rich one. It's mostly sandy soil which means good drainage and not a lot of anything else. It's getting more organic material only as it has grass or weeds we pull die on top and decay into the soil but no fertilizer or compost has been added in quite some time. And then it been buried several inches down.

Upcoming Winter Weather

I was really hoping to have a longer fall season before the temperatures froze. It's only supposed to be for a short time but that will be plenty to kill off my tomatoes if I can't get them protected better than last year.
That won't stop me from trying at though.  This year I plan to put in supports and weigh it down with some fairly heavy blocks. It isn't supposed to rain much so as long as I put it in well I also plan to put a light in with the plants for a little warmth, propped up off the ground a bit of course.
The saffron fortunately loves this kind of weather and will keep sprouting. 14 counted so far and hoping for at least 20 if not more. Eventually I hope to have hundreds of bulbs springing up each season. That would be enough to use more than once or twice, depending on the recipe.
After this week it's supposed to pop back up a little and be good growing weather again.
Carrots should be planted this week too, probably mid week when I get a little time to work on the garden again.

Frostbitten Plants

The extreme cold has really taken a toll on some of the plants. Even the agave plants have a bit of damage where they bent a little while nearly solid leaving crack lines across some of the leaves. All but the hardiest of plants in the side bed have died back but this has also given the seeds waiting or spring a good chill preparing them for the growing season.

Some of the inside plants at the office have also felt the effects of the cold with the drop in humidity and the cold air coming off of the windows. Inside plants are usually more tropical and not used to a lot of change in their environment. The thicker the leaves the better they do though.

Can't wait until the air gets a little warmer and I can go enjoy the yard again for more than a few minutes at a time.

Snow Peas

I've planted the snow pea seeds after they had a good freeze. Now we get to wait and see if they come up.  The ground is plenty fertile and most of the other plants have died back now so there's little competition for nutrients. The only possible competitors would be the few carrots still sprouting up and growing.
I ate one of them yesterday with a little brown sugar and butter glaze and it was so much better than the store bought carrots. It had a more flavorful taste to it reminiscent of a sweet potato.  That reminds me that I really need to go check the potato patch and see if there's anything to dig up. You never know until you look.

Pansies In The Frost

Although I mentioned pansies in the last post I didn't expect to get a shot of them coated in ice. This is a good show of how hardy they can be. When the ice melts in a couple days they will just keep on growing.

On the way back to the house this evening I saw many more pansies in front of businesses having even more color and showy blooms than this one.

Saffrons Blooming

It's that time of year again.  The saffron is blooming and there are many more this year than last.  I pulled the treads from one of the flowers and my finger where the juice hit is now a lovely yellow color with a  hint of the aroma I can anticipate.  I will get around to harvesting them some more later today and see what I have so far. A quick look revealed at least four flowers and many sprouts.

The purple color is a welcome sight as the air chills and unfortunately killed all my tomato plants.  As always, next year will be better.

I plan to make a nice saffron bread from my egg bread recipe. The flavors should work well together.

Second Cold Snap of the Season

Tonight will be the second cold snap of the season.  If I can get the tomato plants to adapt and weather this through I may just have some tomato plants make it through till spring.

The plan is mulching with some grass debris and leaves I have and hopefully keep the stems in good condition until it warms up.

The wife has been asking about doing something similar to the lemon grass. Currently it's the biggest clump we've gotten so far and we really don't want to loose it like we did our basil crop.  At least the basil will reseed itself and we should have plenty in the spring popping up.

Speaking of popping up, the saffron has popped up and is still growing nicely.  We've had one flower although I seem to have misplaced the stamens we picked.  They're already dividing from the bulbs we purchased as seen from the clusters of shoots in places where we only planted single bulbs.

As far as planting, it's about time for root vegetables and snow peas. Hardy greens will do good as well. I'll probably be planting carrot, cabbage and snow peas in the next couple days.

Monster Beet Growth

After looking for a little while many people are touting the nutritional benefits of the beet, which is a great reason to eat them, and a bit about the ability to eat the whole thing.  I was eating greens right off the plant just yesterday showing our neighbor's kid that I wasn't joking that you could eat right off the plant. Since we don't use pesticides and I had just watered anyway they were even already washed. Living in the metroplex, I still want to wash off the pollution that can settle from cars and industrial places around.

What I didn't find was the mangled monster that I have growing in my garden.  At first it just seemed to be a strangely large beet plant with a huge stalk. The leaves on the stalk died back somewhat but the stalk never did.  After it got cooler new growth started on the stalk and more recently it started to grow entirely new beets off the side of the stalk.  We're thinking of cutting some of them off to go in a salad but we'll see when the time comes how it looks. In the mean time we're just letting it grow and hopefully soon we'll get some seed from it.

Approaching winter

I haven't had a lot of time to go out and garden but winter is fast approaching and it doesn't look like it's going to wait on me to get my garden ready.  The on and off drizzles have started which makes it hard to plan when a good time to go out would be but it also keeps me from having to worry as much about watering.  Anything hardy probably won't have to be watered by me until spring.

Crops I'm hoping will still produce something this year:
tomatoes -  they're still flowering but I don't think they're pollinating. I haven't seen any little tomatoes forming.
saffron - I planted the bulbs but they might not do anything until next year.
beets - They're growing but I don't know if they will be big enough to eat. the really large one may be too big and I'm hoping it will flower and make tons of seed.
wild yam - Still not sure what to do with it but there's a small patch in the front yard.

Beauties in the Herb Garden

After a years worth of posts (365) it's a good time to look back over and see what is still working. We may have some gaps in the herb garden, but here are a few herbs which have made it  not only through the brutal summer, but are thriving in the unusual not-so-wintery weather.

Oregano -- It's making a beautiful carpet near the front door and has always been plentiful enough to use whatever is necessary for cooking.  We've even had to toss some of the trimmings when it was just too much.

Lemon Thyme -- We thought it was a goner, but it is making a comeback.  Only a few months ago it was down to about 2 stems and a few dozen leaves. Excellent in cookies.

Rosemary -- This is only one of our three bushes.  While the other two are upright, they are all as glossy and healty as this guy.  Always a pleasant smell as guests arrive and rub against it on the way in.

Cilantro -- This annual is only looking bigger and prettier in the middle of February.  A self seeder, it's come back for a few years now and just in time to miss tomato season.  May have to dry a good bit of this for tomato sauce come summer.

Winter Temperatures Keep Warming Up

Just a few days ago the weather folks said it would drop below freezing for the lows for a couple days.  The next day they had revised it to the upper 30's.
Earlier today they tried to say it would be in the lower 30's for lows but is now back up to the upper 30's again.  I can only hope that the winter passes by without a lot of cold.  Maybe I can get my garden going early this year.
The snow peas are still loving the temps as well as the beets and strange mystery plants growing near them.  If anyone can identify them please do.  I still don't really know. http://gardentimeline.blogspot.com/2012/01/alum-root.html

Snow Peas

I pulled two snow peas today and gave them to a coworker who really likes veggies. I figured she'd be a good person to tell me if it's producing a good tasting snow pea.  By the time I picked them they had plumped quite a bit and didn't resemble the snow pea I usually see in chinese food.
She said it went perfectly in her salad and I'm looking forward to using the rest of them minus a few more for her as a thank you for testing them for me.  It should produce many more before the season is over.

Springing Plants

I don't know who told them to but I have several plants, most notably the lamb's ear and echinacea, sprouting and shooting up like there's no winter left but little do they know it's going to freeze again tonight.
One of the plants I don't think will mind too much is the snow pea plant.  I believe I misidentified it as a edamame.  Well I couldn't remember what I planted in that pot I just knew that I gave up on it when all of the pots baked in what felt like a 400 degree oven that is the metroplex...
The agave plants likewise should have no problem with the cold.  There are lots of them in the area and none of them so far have had any really bad effects from the cold.
The fennel likewise is making a comeback and the wild onion is actually a little late it feels like.  There are a few up front but the back seems a little lacking in that field...

Winter Postponed

So far winter has decided not to make too much of an impression.  It's cool enough to keep grass from growing much but for the most part it's been a nice mild winter.  January and February are still ahead but so far I really can't complain about the weather.
We had some nice rain, which was desperately needed even in Austin where my brother was having his wedding but was not rained out. The heat this winter is enough that many of my not so cold hardy plants are still producing and the wild onion in the back doesn't think it's time to come up yet.
The down side is that the ants don't think it's winter yet either and are still mounding and preparing for spreading.  I've killed many ants already.

Pruning Trees

It's cold and sometimes rainy, a perfect time of year to make a nice cup of tea and wrap up in a warm blanket.
It's also the perfect time of year to get some needed pruning done. The trees are dormant and for us in Arlington we have pretty nice weather.
There are three reasons to prune a tree, shaping, fruit production and removing damaged or dead material.
If you want to shape a tree you first need to figure out what shape you want the tree to take on.  This will depend on what kind of tree it is and where it was planted.  An apple tree for instance usually need plenty of room to spread out and you would thus prune the branches to give plenty of room between the main limbs.  If you moved into a house where the apple tree is in a more cramped space you might do something similar but with the branches moving more upward, cutting off branches that might want to be hitting the house or other structures.

For fruit production you will want to remove sucker branches. These grow more or less straight up from the trunk or sometimes large branches.  they usually don't produce fruit but are easy to remove since they are new and green.  You would remove these in the spring when they form.  They can also be removed in the winter but  by this time will have become woody. If you bought a bush from the store then the rootstock might not be the same as the rest of the bush.  Suckers originating from the base may not even be of the same type and can take over if not removed.
For removing dead or damaged limbs you will need to figure out what limbs need removing and make sure you have removed enough. A rotted limb might go into a larger limb and the entire thing might need removing.  This happened with my fig tree. A limb as big around as my arm had to be cut out.  The next year it produced better than ever since it didn't have to work on healing as much.
One of the main things to consider with any pruning is making sure the tree as a whole is not damaged in the process.  A cut too far back can damage the limb or trunk the pruned limb is being cut off of.  Better in that case not to cut too much lest you have to cut the next branch too.

Update:
I would recommend cutting these off as soon as you see them start to grow.

Winter Gardening

Gardening in the winter isn't something everyone can do.  It is one of the few things living in the metroplex allows.  Sure our summer this year killed almost everything but this winter has been a great growing time.  We've got some beets, cilantro and plenty of herbs thriving everywhere.  Sure they're not as glamorous as red tomatoes or majestic sun flowers but carrots, beets, cabbage, peas and many other veggies can be grown and taste so much better in the fall and winter months.  Continued planting also keeps the soil up and keeps weeds down.

Pesto Time Again

I harvested several large basil plants, some forming woody stems, to make pesto before cooler frost hit last night.  I got a mix of purple and green but after you blend it all together you can't really tell, it's just a little darker than normal.
The long part of making pesto is picking the leaves off of the plant.  You don't want the woody stem in the pesto since it won't cook down quite right when you add it to a dish. i can't imagine eating pasta with chicken or possibly shrimp and finding a hard woody piece of basil in the mix.
The recipe I used calls for pine nuts, but I used walnuts instead, along with garlic and olive oil.  As usual it took a while for the leaves to get chopped up enough to blend well but in the end it made 16 cubes of pesto.  One cube is plenty to season a pasta dish for my wife and me and should last most of the year the way we use it.  Last year we didn't get quite as much and had to get some pesto from the store.
I tossed the flower heads along with the stems back into the garden to finish reseeding for next year's crop.  There were also some smaller basil plants up front that I left. The mild freeze seemed to have mostly gotten to them and weren't many good leaves to use.