August 2009 Archives

Saving the world from organized aphid crime

Our heroes!

When I started my garden last year, I focused primarily on choosing native butterfly/caterpillar and hummingbird plants, and I kept telling my husband about how different our yard would look next year (which is now this year). But I knew that he wouldn't really get into it until he saw his first hummingbird. For my husband, hummingbirds remind him of visiting his grandparents in Uvalde, and so the little birds are quite special to him. Now that our garden is growing and we get hummingbirds regularly, it's fun to watch my husband get such enjoyment out of our garden.   

  We have many varieties of hummingbird plants now, but the plants are still more or less small, so the main visits are to the feeders, though I've seen visits to the Salvia and Flame Acanthus. We had just one feeder up for many months, and then a few days ago, I found a second hummingbird feeder in the back of our garage, and we set it out. I don't know whether it was the combination of two feeders or the fact that migration is underway, but that very day we had five hummingbirds zooming around. We sat out on chairs and enjoyed trying to identify them. I couldn't get pictures of them all at once -- they were all flitting about trying to push the others away from feeders while trying to sneak in some sugar themselves. 

Of the two feeders, I much prefer the UFO-shaped HummZinger feeder over the taller, more traditional feeder. There are a few reasons for this, but primarily the Hummzinger is much, much, much easier to clean, and it has a built in "moat" to keep the ants out. It's all plastic, which is a bummer, but the design is sound and it feeds da birdies, so I forgive it. It helps keep the wasps out, too. It's also more affordable than the blown-glass feeders, which my dogs would break anyway. It's very noticeable how quickly the liquid goes down in the tall one, so I'm not sure if it means the tall one is the first choice for the hummingbirds. This is worth investigating!

We had to visit one of the big building stores yesterday for house repair stuff, and as I wandered through the garden center just to see what was there, I passed by a couple buying hummingbird feeders and food. I decided to offer them some friendly advice, that making your own sugar water is better than buying commercial syrup because red food coloring is reported to be dangerous for hummingbirds, plus making your own saves money. But this couple just looked at me quite annoyed, and the husband stated that hummingbirds won't come to the feeders unless it has the red liquid, and I could tell by his tone that he considered me to be foolish and ignorant and that I needed to mind my own business. So I said very pleasantly that yes they do come to the feeders without red liquid, and I moved on, hoping that because the wife also said that they would, that maybe she'd actually someday stop buying the red liquid. But I'm not so sure the husband will. Tried to help. Denied. Move on. Clearly this guy is not a friendly garden blogger or garden blog reader!

 But I thank him for the inspiration behind today's post -- tips for attracting hummingbirds to your yard, with details on feeders and making the syrup.

• Do plant nectar-filled native plants (tubular ones are particularly attractive to the birdies). Here in Austin, some favorites are Turk's Cap, Flame Acanthus, Red Yucca, Crossvine, Coral Honeysuckle, among others. 
• Set out hummingbird feeders as well (edit: unless you live in an area with bears -- eep! thanks, RoseyPollen). Hummingbirds consume plant nectar and tiny insects for vitamins and protein, and they use a feeder's sugar water to fuel their crazy energy needs. Hummingbird feeders with perches give tired birds a chance to rest a moment while they feed.

• Make your own sugar syrup for the feeders. Don't buy red commercial products. Use one part white cane sugar to 4 parts water. According to hummingbirds.net, you don't have to boil the water first, but you do need to replace the feeder's syrup every three days and replace stored, refrigerated syrup every two weeks. They also state that turbinado sugar and beet sugar are NOT good choices, so stick to the white cane sugar (I laugh because I'm trying to steer my family away from white sugar but I feed it to the birdies? ha). And absolutely NO honey or gelatin or food coloring. I mix:
         1 cup white sugar
         4 cups water
• Clean the feeders regularly (give a good hot rinse each time you replace the syrup; every 3 or so weeks for a major cleaning), but NOT with bleach or soap or detergent or anything toxic. Some sites say to use bleach, but bleach is extremely bad for the environment and potentially reacts with the plastic as well, so I don't use or recommend it. Vinegar is a great alternative to bleach, but no matter what you use, rinse extremely well.

Other than that, be patient. This time of year, many hummingbirds are in migration. Next month, my family is going to the Gulf of Mexico to hopefully see migrating hummingbirds en masse, so I hope I'll get a few good pictures to share. 

FYI, I looked into making my own hummingbird feeders with recycled bottles. But upon investigation, I learned that the long tubes used for the typical upside-down feeders, homemade or store-bought, tend to leak, causing all sorts of problems. I decided to save the money and avoided purchasing the tubes. I still hope to make my own someday, but I won't be using an upside-down version.   

Now that the kids are back in school, I'm trying to take a few days to get the house back together. It's been a mess with all the gardening, dogs, painting, and constant activity, so I'm a green cleaning machine (my family's working their elbow grease, too). At the same time, I've been adding some new pages to my blog's sidebar with some tips for going green. I'm always looking for ways to be eco-wise in my home, but I'm still learning and incorporating, too, trying to make it all routine. Being eco-wise is obviously important to our planet, but sometimes it's hard to get started or hard to think beyond what you have done all your life. So if you find a useful tip or two, I'm happy! Part of the reason I decided to work on these pages was to remind myself to continue helping my family take positive strides toward reducing our negative impact on the planet.

To launch the new pages, I'd like to pay homage to the Indispensable Vinegar. It might not be fragrant like that rose in your garden, but it's oh so very useful. Take a look at all it can do for you!

Inside the home, vinegar can be used to:
Clean kitchen counters and sinks
Clean mirrors
Clean bathroom counters, sinks, and bath tub - either use diluted spray or making a scouring cleanser with baking soda, liquid detergent, and vinegar
Get soap scum off of glasses
Break down bodily fluids, such as vomit or feces, in the carpet or on your floor (dilute 1:1 with water)
Clean and soothe irritated skin after working in the garden (or touching poison ivy)
Deoderize a garbage disposal
Clean the inside of a refrigerator
Keep ants out of the kitchen
Soak pot stains to get them clean
Soothe itches from bug bites and poison ivy
Clean toothbrushes (and dentures!)
Laundry - add to your wash cycle for stubborn smells in your clothes or in your machine. Use dilute vinegar to loosen stains on your clothes before washing
Clean windows
Absorb smells - just put a bowl out overnight!
Clean litter boxes
Clean toilets, inside the bowl and on the exterior
Remove stains and smells from counters, pots, dishes, and hands
Mop the floor (particular useful on ceramic tile with grout; however, don't use on marble)
Clean stains from carpet

Outside the home, use vinegar to:
Clean your barbeque grill
Clean upholstery stains
Clean birdfeeders (always rinse well, regardless of how you clean)
Keep pests away from your garden bed, including rabbits and cats (be careful where you place, and don't spill - it's a natural plant killer)
Clean your trash bin
Clean stains off concrete
Clean clay pots
Remove ice or bugs from car windows
Kill weeds -- no need for Round-Up! Spray directly on weeds (careful of your other plants), on stubborn tap roots, and even on poison ivy! Some people use a combination of vinegar, dishwashing liquid, and salt on their poison ivy, too. Others heat the vinegar first to strength the acidity.
Clean windows

PRACTICE CANCELLED DUE TO RAIN

Rock-a-bye, baby

In pantyhose

You won't fall down

When the wind blows

Snug in your bed

Some melons might laugh

Till they drop right off

And go-o-o CRACK.

Look what I discovered was visiting the cantaloupe today.

I feel like I've reached a major gardening milestone -- I've officially attracted a (major) bee to pollinate my flowers. He was quite a busy bee, too. My pictures aren't great -- the sun was high, and I was hot, but I snapped a few and got myself out of there.

Is he actually a honeybee? That would make me extra happy.  

There was also this little butterfly around, with a nice long proboscis. I believe it's a skipper, but I don't know which kind yet.

So it's a happy day. Plus my kids are back in school as of today. Brain power!

Two of our three raised beds are green and busy, and our third bed patiently waits for temperatures to cool. Fall planting is not too far away! I've selected seeds for a variety of fall plants, and the desire to go straight to having four beds is pretty strong at this point. I've expanded to the fence line, as well, a work in progress. Part of me keeps looking at the rest of the yard, wondering whether I have the nerve to turn it into a much bigger garden, but four beds will keep me busy enough for this year. I'm already planning to at least move the shed to get more space for raised beds.

The challenge now is that I'm educating myself on crop rotation and multi-year planning. I realize now that it might have been wiser for me not to put cucurbits (melons and squashes) into two of my three beds, because it will be difficult to start a good crop rotation plan with what I have (you want to move crop families with each season/year). I'm not too worried about it, as these are brand new beds, and so far the pests/diseases have not been too bad. But I want to do this as right as I can from the get-go. Inside I'm chuckling, as I have sooooo much to learn, and (more) mistakes will most certainly be made.

But I'm doing research - taking classes and visiting my trusty friend Google. I've started a 3-ring binder notebook, storing planting guides and tips, and in it I will also place anything I print out related to my garden. Nice and portable. This blog will serve as the main journal, though.

Planning so far ahead is scary, but it's the best way to maximize harvests in the planting seasons. I'll post my diagram once it's complete. Of course, it's all subject to change! After all, as I'm learning, there's always something obvious to others that I'll not figure out until after I've moved forward and gotten myself into a big mess (like not using seeds from store-bought cantaloupes). Little things like how corn can help get rid of root nematodes, which could affect carrots and other root plants, and how certain plants can release toxins that inhibit small seed germination - it can be overwhelming knowing how much I have to learn. Companion planting, too - plant this plant near this plant, but this other plant will inhibit growth of said plant, so plant it near this other plant... ACK.

Part of me wants to be the kind of gardener who just plants stuff and sees what grows. But it's clear that there's a lot more to a successful farm garden than just sticking seeds in the ground and adding water. If something fails, then months to a year might go by before you get to try again. Ouch to wasting that time and money. So, education.

Fall plants I'm looking at include kale, kohlrabi, spinach, carrots, lettuce, strawberries, garlic, and peas. I'm planting zucchini and beans now, catching their late summer planting window. That fourth bed is likely to be dedicated just to strawberries for this upcoming season. Yum.

Edit: My husband just tentatively asked me, "What's kale?" Muahahaha.   

"A Watched Cantaloupe Never Fruits"

Yesterday I joined many Austinites for another veggie class, this time taught by Master Gardener Patty Leander. During her excellent presentation, Patty covered a lot of information regarding specific fall crops recommended for central Texas. I particularly appreciated the various resources available as printouts, such as lists of recommended seed varieties and good seed resources (you can find these pages at the Central Texas Horticulture website, under Gardens & OrchardsàVegetables; also adding to my sidebar, even though it's by Aggies). Caroline from the Shovel-Ready Garden was there, as well as Master Gardeners and Austin Garden Bloggers Bonnie from Kiss of Sun and Vicki from Playin' Outside. I heard rumors of there being other local garden bloggers there, too, but I didn't get to meet up with them.

After the presentation, we chatted for a bit, even talking about my cantaloupe worries and laughing about the plant sex thing. None of us knew what to expect for pollen from male cantaloupe flowers, nor whether I should be concerned about the potential hybrid-ness of my cantaloupe and the sterility of my plants' male flowers. So basically I went home still on the same path of "wait and see."

Not really wanting to feel sad that my female cantaloupe flowers were pining for potentially potent pollen, I put off visiting my garden until late in the day, then decided to go out and squish a few bugs. I'd had the kids watering the veggie garden for the past few days, so I was out of touch, and the bugs seemed to figure it out. The aphids are spreading, I might have some red dots that could be spider mites on my big pumpkin plants, and the little as-yet-unidentified red bugs on my cantaloupes are getting more numerous, along with their larger black versions. So I did a little veggie "debugging." Sweat bees are still my tiny little pollinating buddies - I check the inside of a flower before I do any additional hand pollinating.

My cantaloupes are very prolific bloomers.

And then I saw it. This cute hairy little bulb on the female flower. It was a little bigger and noticeably more fuzzy than ones in previous days.

And as I inspected a little more, I found an even larger one!

And another one!

Could they be... pollinated?!!! Or are they just teasing me? Will non-pollinated ovaries grow in size for awhile?

But then I about screamed when my eyes fell upon this one. I almost tackled my 12-year-old as I ran for the camera.

It's bigger than a golf ball!

Does this mean I might have normal cantaloupe after all? Or could they become goofy-shaped strange-tasting hybrid freaky fruits? I know, I know -- wait and see. No matter what happens, I'm having fun, and that's worth the price of all that soil I put in those raised beds. 

In other veggie-odd news, my sugar pumpkins have bigger leaves than my jack-o-lantern pumpkins. They have many buds, both male and female, but only the first males are just now blooming, to my knowledge. Weird. Of course, they could have been blooming while my back was turned.

And I found the first female buds on the jack-o-lantern pumpkins. I bet those male flowers are excited. J

Pole beans are growing. Corn's growing. One is sending up something through the center of its stalk - hopefully a good something and not a worm.

  And I'm canta-loopy. Time to read up on when to reduce watering and how many fruit I should remove from the plant to maximize the sweetness of those that remain. Is it one cantaloupe per vine or one per plant for max sweetness? I hope one per vine.

Assuming I'm not actually growing Audrey 2, that is.

Here's my entry for Gardening Gone Wild's August Photo Contest, for the theme "Down on Your Knees." I'm amazed at the beauty of nature shown in all the photographs. Great job, everyone!  

This photo is of the tiniest little spider making a web in my aloe vera plant. I never realized I had such a wee resident making its home in there. And I actually had to lay down for this shot!

Because of all this house painting I've been doing, I've had to rely on the kids to help water, and I was starting to experience garden and blog withdrawal symptoms. So today I got out the camera and trekked around the yard getting my scheduled watering done and snapping a few pictures along the way. I also took another veggie class this morning (more on that in a separate post).  So I got my infusion of "green" this morning. And as soon as I finish blogging, I get to go back to... you guessed it... painting. Houses are big! Even small houses! 

Today I honor and recognize my yard's truly amazing Survivors. In our Texas heat wave, really every plant that still has chlorophyll is a survivor, but some of my plants have overcome some of the worst situations to keep on growing despite the odds against them. I give you... the Survivors.

The Challenge: Being gnawed to the ground, dug out, dragged across the yard, trampled, peed on, or otherwised abused by THE DOGS

There are numerous survivors here, including our sweet remaining Mexican Redbud and Hop Trees, and others. The Goldenball Leadtree shown here survived not only the dogs chewing it in half, but the fire ants that made a colony in the original planter (I had to survive those fire ants, too, because I found out about them the hard way). I can't wait to see blooms on this little guy, by the way. Little golden puffballs!

The Challenge: Growing in the side yard, which means being in a place that is so low priority on the watering scale that they often get forgotten. 

Lucky for the sideyard plants, I've been rinsing my paintbrushes out there (fyi, we're using eco-friendly paint), so they are getting more water than they are used to, and they are using the opportunity to grow, recover, and even bloom. I have several survivors of this challenge, but here are pictures of Salvia "Indigo Spires," Flame Acanthus, Turk's Cap, and Inland Sea Oats. The Inland Sea Oats also have been mowed over several times when we thought they were long gone or something else.

      The Challenge: Surviving where others have failed

My first Chile Pequin simply struggled to grow, and I assumed it was because it needed more water than I could regularly provide. But after it died, I bought another and planted it in similar shade a few feet away, in the neglected side yard. Though it gets even less water than the first, the new one has grown to about a foot tall already.

The Challenge: Thriving despite being told, "You're too old"

Our house was built in 1971, and we've lived here 14 years. We have two huge Arizona Ash Trees in the front yard, and we were told five years ago that the trees were at full maturity and would die at any time. Well, they continue to do fine, so well that they once again have blanketed our sidewalks and yard in golden leaf-like seeds.  We never water the two trees, which a neighbor suggested might be why ours do well where others have died off. Regardless, we thank them for their shade.

  The Challenge: Being a tree planted in late February as opposed to fall/winter, and then surviving what we think was overwatering

Lacey Oak is one of our favorite trees, and our tiny one just recently caved to the heat and abuse by dogs. But this other beauty of a tree was planted a little late in the season in the front yard, and we were determined that it would not die to transplant shock or heat. But after a few months, we became concerned at the number of leaves turning brown or partially brown. At first we thought it needed more water, but now I think it was overwatering that might be cause. We backed off on the watering, and it's hanging on. Grow, baby, grow!

The Challenge: Surviving despite our best efforts to (purposely) kill it

We're NOT cheering for these, by the way. There are some plants that keep growing back despite how hard you try to kill them off -- weeds, of course, Bermuda grass, and so on, but in this case I'm referring to Chinaberry and Gum Bumelia.

Chinaberry is an exotic invasive, and it grows from any little bit of root you accidentally leave in the soil, and of course from the numerous berries. The neighbor's mother tree has been removed, but we are still trying to dig out shoots from a root so deep we can't get to it, and others growing out from under the air conditioner. This next time, I'm pouring on the vinegar.

The Gum Bumelia is a Texas native, and it made me a little sad to remove the ones growing directly behind the house, but their spines are exceptionally long and hazardous, and they blocked us from having any other use for that area right by our patio. Even cutting them down led to numerous spines in the dirt, and we had to pull many out of our shoes and sometimes (ouch) feet. I can't get to all the culprit roots, so I'll try vinegar on these, too. 

The Challenge: Being the tiniest plant to survive several TX freezes in a season, with some winter-wise TLC

This Yellowbells, or Texas Esperanza, plant was a tiny little 4-inch guy that was planted just before a series of freezes in central Texas. My efforts (watering and covering) to keep it and its neighbors apparently did the trick, because they all survived. Is that an assassin bug in there? I hope so. Be good bug, not bad bug. 

The Challenge: Surviving being a tree planted in full sun in the heat of the summer

We couldn't resist buying this big Mexican lime for such a cheap price, and then we realized how perfect it was for a bright spot by our patio. We decided to take the chance and plant it and not to get too mad at ourselves if it didn't make it. It's actually doing pretty well, and its leaves let us know when it needs water. I even got to pull a lime off it, though it was probably already growing when we bought the tree.

The Challenge: Making a comeback despite being near death when finally getting put in the ground

Again, numerous survivors here, but one of my Rose Pavonias (Texas Rock Rose), a Gaura, and a Basketgrass (Nolina) got photos taken. The Nolina doesn't look like much, but trust me, we're happy to see some green.

The Challenge: Staying alive in full sun as tiny seedlings until another growing season began, and then finally starting to grow

My son's mixed bell pepper seedlings, planted in a recycled recycling bin. 

The Challenge: Being overshadowed by towering plants, but blooming once those died off (the Na-na-na-na-na Challenge)

That would be one of our Pink Skullcaps, accidentally sandwiched between the tall kind of Zinnias since spring.

The Challenge: Surviving the worst we can throw at a plant, short of acid

Perhaps the winner of all winners should be my very first Dutchman's Pipevine, which has survived being dragged across the yard by the dogs, having its leaves completely stripped by dogs and roofers (in cleaning up their mess), being drowned, being underwatered, being smothered by a foot of leaves, being transplanted multiple times, and more. It is now hopefully in a permanent spot, alongside more of its kind, with something to challenge it to grow taller.

There are plenty of other survivors in my yard that also deserved their tales told, but it's time to paint. :)

I end with a picture of Loki, doing what he needs to survive...

Lookee, lookee! Something new is on my sidebar. It's a list of all the plants in my garden. Click there, or click here, and take a look!

It's a work in progress, and as I add new plants, so will I add to the list. But at long last, I finally got off my tush and, well, sat on my tush, and typed up the list of plants. I've only finished adding scientific names for the Texas-native plants, but I will catch up on the others. Any other errors are purely accidental!

I'm a bit behind in reporting on what I learned at the Organic Vegetable Gardening 101 class at Natural Gardener on Saturday. We're painting our house, and it takes a very long time, as we're doing it by ourselves using brushes only. Oh, how my muscles ache. Give me weeding and tilling over exterior painting any day! On the other hand, it's looking good, despite the slow method! I'll share a picture at some point, when we're further along in the process.

So... veggies! By the way, I took this class with Caroline of The Shovel-Ready Garden and Cat of Amlo Farms. They are delightful! I see in Caroline's blog that while I took more notes, she took more pictures, haha! Well, I'm a farming newbie -- I had to pay close attention! So I recommend visiting Caroline's blog for additional information about hoop houses and many excellent photographs.

The class, taught by horticulturist Rosina Newton, covered a lot of the basics of starting a garden. A big part of her lecture was on soil preparation. It was particularly interesting to hear how much they mix into their soil, versus the simple mixing in of compost that I did for my jack-o-lantern pumpkins. For their vegetable garden, they mixed in:

• cottonseed meal (organic 7-2-1 fertilizer)
• cow manure compost
• green sand (for minerals, such as potassium)
• worm castings
• *crab shell (*they are dealing with root-knot nematodes, which are bad nematodes - the crab shell encourages chitin-loving microbes to increase, which will consume both the crab shell and the bad nematodes)

They also water in with liquid seaweed and then regularly fertilize. In Texas, we need to mulch - pine straw is recommended. Rosina says, "Never leave bare soil."

Rosina recommends fertilizing every 4 to 6 weeks with an organic fertilizer. Fertilizers are labeled with three numbers, which in order identify ratio of Nitrogen : Phosphorus : Potassium (N-P-K). FYI, they are absorbed in a 3-2-1 ratio. Nitrogen helps with green leafy growth; phosphorus helps with roots, blooms, and fruit; and potassium helps with plant vigor, stem strength, and disease/pest resistance. For my pumpkins and melons, I chose Rabbit Hill's Buds 'N Blooms fertilizer. So if you never knew what those numbers mean, there ya go! Choose your fertilizer based on your garden needs.

Other tips:

• Add Innoculant when planting legumes, for necessary rhizobium bacteria.
• Plant your garden east to west to allow best sun coverage as it passes over. Taller plants should be on the north side, unless you need them to provide shade for other plants.
• Don't over-till. A garden fork is preferable over a shovel, too.
• Always wet the root ball before transplanting.
• Always rotate your crops with each planting season. For example, don't use the same bed you just had squash in to plant anything else from the squash family. Ideally, wait two years before using that same location.

There was other information about dealing with clay soil, sheet mulching to deal with Bermuda grass, and using row and shade cover. I'm not adding that here, but if anyone is interested in what was said, I'll be happy to provide it if you let me know in a comment.

Here's a bee that captured my attention while they were planting during class. I love bees!

This was an interesting side note from Rosina - apparently it has been found that ADD/ADHD is linked to a magnesium deficiency. And what is the first nutrient to deplete from the soil? Magnesium. Could there be a correlation in regard to diet, she wondered? In any case, it certainly won't hurt to make sure your veggies and fruits get fertilized and replenished minerals. Epsom salt adds magnesium, fyi. Apparently there's info on the package about how to use in a garden.

With trusty Googling, I read that symptoms of low magnesium include light or restless sleep and daytime sleepiness. That's me to a tee - I'll need to see what my energy levels are like on days where I do or do not eat nuts, spinach, oatmeal, or bananas.

A final note -- Rosina's helper added this message, which I'd like to pass on: "Teach children and others to be caretakers of the soil, for the next generation." So many kids never venture outside, much less learn to garden, in this era of technology. How will they protect the Earth, if we don't teach them to love it and nurture it?

There's a Master Gardeners organic gardening class on Saturday. I might try to go to it, too.

After taking an Organic Vegetable Gardening 101 class today, I get to jump straight into painting my garage, so I can't wander the yard with the camera. But I'm sneaking in this one picture for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day -- it was an exciting surprise bloomer for me. I planted the species last fall and not once had it bloomed until about a week ago, when all three of mine bloomed at once. It's a Cenizo (Leucophyllum frutescens), a common landscaping plant here in Austin, as the contrasting purple blooms against the silvery-green foliage is a striking sight. The little fuzzy hairs give it a very soft appearance.

Cenizo is a beautiful, low-water-usage, heat-AND-cold-tolerant, any-kind-of-soil, sun-to-part-shade, dry-soil, nectar-providing, shelter-providing, screen-providing, deer-resistant Texas native shrub, explaining its huge popularity around Austin. How's that for a list of credentials? It's also known as Texas Sage, Purple Sage, and Texas Barometer Bush, among other names. It gets the name of barometer bush because of its tendency to bloom with rain.

One pet-peeve of mine, though: This plant is at its most gorgeous when only lightly pruned but mostly left to natural growth. Some people chop it to shape it, turning a once-beautiful plant into a hideous disaster. Keep Cenizo Wild!

Tomorrow I'll post some of the veggie gardening tips we learned at the class. And now I'm off to paint! I don't know why I used an exclamation point there, like I'm excited about it...

My last post was atypically serious for me, so I feel the need to cleanse with a standard "ack, my garden" post. Bit by bit, the pests are starting to find my garden. What if they tell their friends?

I knew what those ants on my pumpkin vines were up to, so I was prepared mentally for yesterday's discovery, if not emotionally. The aphids had found the pumpkins. I thought about reaching for the soapy water, but the affected leaves were few, so I removed just those leaves and stuck them in the soapy water instead. I know I can't continue to do that, but I wasn't worried about affecting the plant -- people sometimes pinch off whole vines in growing their pumpkins. One or two leaves shouldn't be a problem. But there will be more aphids, so I best prepare the soapy spray.

Today I got up to check the garden and found that something had chopped off a large section of one of the corn plants. This was no grasshopper, unless it was the big dude from the other day back to seek revenge. What might it be? Opossum? Dog? No evidence on the ground to help me solve the mystery. 

The garden's not too far from my bedroom window. I need a spotlight and a switch inside the house so that I can spy on the garden from time to time during my insomniac moments in the night (brought about by the cats attacking my toes and dogs who are either thirsty or need to go outside having drunk all their water). Perhaps a bright light will help me catch the culprit in the act. Of course, if it's not mammal-caused, then perhaps it won't do me a bit of good.

Most of the corn is fine and healthy. But a few seedlings stay small, victims of terrible regular feasting by a vicious corn-eating monster. You thinking what I'm thinking? Grasshopper.

NEWS FLASH: This just in. Either the evil grasshopper from two days ago came back to the garden, or I found his cousin, who jumped up to the trellis wires. He expected me to run and get my camera, I know, but instead I removed both my flip flops and sandwiched him in between. Gruesome, you say? Did you see what he did to my poor corn plants? Remember, he makes babies. Or she. Or it. The Thing. No pictures. I'm not that gruesome!

I noticed that two of my pumpkin plants are starting to show strange discoloring to their leaves. I don't know whether this is normal or some sort of powdery mildew or other disease. Only some leaves are affected, and only two plants. What does this mean? Or am I showing my newbness and those are perfectly normal pumpkin leaves and all pumpkins do that?

While I was taking pictures, this black bug flew down. What is he?

The leafminer flies are frequent visitors to the plants. Though the damage of their larvae is slight, it's unsightly. Not slightly unsightly, hoho.

I'm checking the plants daily for more evidence of squash vine borer eggs and for more of those little unknown red bugs. The closest thing I can come up with on identifying that bug is flea beetle, but there don't seem to be any pictures to support this.

I know it's only going to get worse. But I'm still going to do my best to keep all these and new pests at bay! <breaks out the boxer gloves>

I want to state immediately that Great Stems is not a political blog by any means; it's a garden blog. Anything political does not provide the mood I want to feel and express in my blog. But this blog isn't just about gardening - it's about green, healthy, sustainable living. Many of the people who read this blog are not just gardeners - they are organic gardeners and consumers who are very health conscious and money conscious. And many of them have been long-term Whole Foods shoppers.  And it is this reason that I'm writing about yesterday's article from John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, in the Wall Street Journal. Like many consumers, I've been severely let down and disillusioned to the effect that I question whether I'll be shopping at Whole Foods anymore. This is not a decision made lightly, mind you. And if I, not a political person by any means, am standing up in anger about this article - well, it should tell you something.

In the article, John Mackey has launched a campaign against health-care reform. Surprising, isn't it, coming from the CEO of a company whose stated values are "caring about our communities and our environment" and whose very consumers are progressive-minded. His article is in direct opposition to the values Whole Foods has claimed to represent.  Mackey supports independent healthcare insurance companies that will ultimately deny people care in their most critical of medical situations. He supports high-deductible health insurance plans that only the wealthy can afford. Furthermore, Whole Foods is now using registered lobbyists, including Michael Torrey from both Bush administrations and Stephen Cannon from the Reagan administration.

Responses from outraged consumers on the Whole Foods website were immediate and are almost countless because they continue to grow, and John Mackey's hypocrisy has in effect started a massive boycott on his own company. He's alienated the very people that provide his paycheck.

That John Mackey wants to take health care in the opposite direction of reform is just a slap in the face to his consumers and the communities Whole Foods claims to care about. So many people out there have had massive neglect from their insurance companies at times of most critical need, to the point of death. I know others who have gone to other countries for surgery to avoid the high costs of similar treatment here in the U.S. Though my family hasn't had a similar situation at this point in our lives, we still have seen the problems with our current healthcare system directly, having just this year had to spend $2,500 in hospital and doctor fees for the one-hour visit to the emergency room for an x-ray and a temporary splint for my son's injured arm (it wasn't even officially broken; nor do the costs include any of the follow-up care from another doctor). I have other family medical stories, too - but they all boil down to this: medical costs are eating us alive.

And the mistakes I've made, SO FAR.

Here's what I did wrong. I'm going to be happy that this list, as far as I'm aware, is short.

1.       I grew cantaloupe from the seeds of store-bought cantaloupes. To be fair to myself, I didn't know any better! So don't do the same thing -- sure it's tempting, but hybrids, if you bought one from the store (most of them are hybrids, apparently), will give you heartache or at least some stress. Read on to find out why. To those I gave seedlings, I will report my findings as I find them out, and I greatly apologize for any grief you experience!

2.       I took a picture of the giant grasshopper, and it got away. I'm still kicking myself about this one, and it only happened yesterday. The babies are hard enough to catch. If you see a big one, don't try to capture the awe in regards to its size or even impressive markings. Just kill it. It will eat and make babies. Something eats bits of my corn, and I blame him. Or them.

Here's what I'm doing right (again, as far as I'm aware). Top-Ten List! Top-Ten List That's Really in No Particular Order!

10.   I gave my cantaloupe seedlings a raised bed and trellis in which to grow to their heart's content without getting trampled by dogs.

9.       I learned about square-foot gardening and went ahead and spent the big bucks to give them a good soil in which to grow. Even the in-ground pumpkins got a healthy dose of compost mixed into their soil spots.

8.       I lovingly give them water each day, and I know to hold back on water as fruit maturity begins to happen.

7.       I learned the difference between male and female flowers and what "self-fertile but not self-fertilizing" plants are.

6.       I learned about and am quite willing to help my cantaloupes' pollination. I don't have many bees here yet, so I have to do what I can to help (I did see one of those big black ones this morning, but he didn't linger long at the cantaloupe flowers; I also see an occasional sweat bee).

5.       I check them each day for bugs and kill anything that looks menacing. Unless it gets away while I'm taking a picture, that is...

4.       I'm being a good mom by growing the cantaloupes at my son's request, and along the way I get to teach my kids about plant life cycles and good gardening practices (and/or my mistakes!).

3.       I gently guide the cantaloupe vines up the trellis to give them something to hang on to.

2.       I learned about companion planting and put in marigolds and corn in their raised bed.

1.       And most importantly, I love them and talk to them and love them some more!

And there you have it. I'm so excited to have thriving cantaloupe plants, but I'm worried that I'm growing a hybrid. So I'm seeking words of wisdom from the experienced cantaloupe gardeners out there! And Cat at AmloFarms has some blooming male flowers (from REAL seeds) she can share with me for pollination purposes. This cantaloupe thing is getting pretty complicated, haha. But for the sake of my cantaloupes, I will drive across town and back! Thank you, Cat! 

The cantaloupes are happily growing up their trellis and trying to grow out wide, too.

We've had male flowers for awhile, and today (day 38) I found my first female. Here's how you tell the difference. The easiest way is looking at the flower stem.

The male rises from the vine with a single plain stem of its own.

The female has a cute little bulge that will become the fruit if pollinated.

Here's a baby female bud.

You can also tell the difference by looking at the inside of the bloom, but here's where I'm unsure about the condition of the inside of my cantaloupe blooms. The male stamens will have pollen, but I can't tell whether mine do, haha.

And the females will have their stigma ready to receive pollen. But mine look quite green, so I don't know if mine look the way they should (I've seen pics with them yellow).

  All the same, I did my best to get some pollen from the male to the female. At first I tried q-tips and a paintbrush, but I saw hardly any yellow on either. So I finally pulled off some male flowers and exposed their stamens and rubbed them on the female.  

No idea whether any pollen grains stuck.

So experienced cantaloupe gardeners, should I be seeing lots of yellow pollen on the males? The male pumpkin flower (just saw my first two today!) has a lot of pollen, that's for sure. And ants. First blooms, day 38.

Here's one of the giant plants. They have a long way to go to reach full size. Egads.

From what I've read, if I read correctly, the female flowers should be ok and just the males might be sterile. But I don't know whether the females are sometimes sterile, too. And even if pollination happens, will I get a regular cantaloupe out of it or some dud?

And while I'm asking, let me ask this: Can someone identify this red bug for me? The bigger versions of it are black, but I don't see any of those on the garden yet, but last fall I had a ton of all sizes in a bunch of fallen leaves. Even the people at Natural Gardener couldn't name them for me. I kill them when I see them now. But I'd like to know what they are. They are not tiny lady bugs, that's all I know.

In other garden news, I decided to do something with my broken tools. Please tell me this looks like a flower, because it's supposed to, HA! I will probably paint it at some point, but it's growing on me (hehe) as is, too.

You can see the evil chinaberry in my very nice neighbor's yard behind it -- it's been my nemesis for many a year. My neighbor finally had it cut down several months ago, but the workers left the stump and roots, so of course it's been growing back with a vengeance. We cut it again just to prevent seeds and it's back -- so the neighbor is getting the tree people back out to properly kill it. Not sure they'll succeed if they don't get the roots out. I'm having to close my eyes and ears about the herbicides they'll probably use... But I'm so thrilled to have a neighbor who is trying to help with the invasives problem!

Sugar pumpkins continue to grow and confuse me. They just aren't eager to send out tendrils, but growing they be, with new bloom buds forming.

Marigold seedlings! Only about 6 took, but I have more seeds to try with.

And much of my corn is happy. A few seedlings are getting chomped by something <evil eye at grasshoppers, even if they aren't to blame>, but the rest are growing. I never really realized how beautiful a corn plant is until all this growing stuff.

And I've planted 8 pole bean seeds so far. I'm making use of the far corners of the trellis squares (ok, according to square-foot gardening, those squares belong to the cantaloupes but they were just sitting there empty! seemed so wasteful). I'll be planting more along the fence once I amend the soil. My wonderful oldest son dug out the weeds from that area for me this morning. This whole "raising kids to work on the farm" was a brilliant plan of the pioneering farmers!

I planted Black-Seeded Blue Lake Pole Beans. The seeds look like engorged ticks. Don't they sound wonderful? But I hear they are delicious. No, really. Really!

Yesterday I had a very pleasant time visiting with Bob of Draco Gardens and his wonderful wife Lynn. They had me cracking up with so many hilarious stories, and they forced on me gave me some fantail goldfish for my pond. Well, to be honest, I was out there to get fish (they have a rather plentiful population at the moment), but somehow they managed to sneak more into the bucket... they claimed it was in case one of the fish died on the way home, haha. I told them that because I didn't actually need more, that they'd all survive, grow, and make babies for me to bring back to Draco Gardens. Sure enough they all survived! More on that in a bit...

We spent a pleasant time chatting, and we got to talking about the Texas Star Hibiscus, a plant they love and one I just happen to have growing in my pond. I told them about the buds on my hibiscus that hadn't bloomed yet, and Bob said I'd be posting a picture in my blog as soon as they did. Well, guess what I discovered today?

Look at that gorgeous red. The species is Hibiscus coccineus, and it's also known as Scarlet Rose Mallow and Wild Red Mallow. It's in the same family as the Texas Rock Rose (Rose Pavonia), and it's native to Texas.

From a distance the leaves appear straggly to me, but close up they are quite striking. Elongated, toothed, and a beautiful combination of green and ruby... It's interesting to note that when this plant was quite small, the lowest leaves were remarkably wide and looked almost as if they belonged to a different plant.

Googling for a bit about the plant, I laughed when I read that in 2004 a Houston narcotics task force raided a landscaper's home and held him at gunpoint because they thought the Texas Star Hibiscus growing in the man's front yard was marijuana. This earned them a Bum Steer Award from Texas Monthly magazine -- for those of you not in Texas, Bum Steer Awards are given each year to the most idiotic or ridiculous people, actions, and events of the year in Texas and sometimes nationally. Not surprisingly, the list is long (and often includes politicians).

Back to the subject at hand -- yes, this photo was taken at the wrong time of day, but I had to capture a picture of the tiny spider standing guard on the flower. Can you spot him?

Here he is:

The buds on my plant are all paired. I wonder if they always appear in pairs. Even the single bloom has a bud with it, as seen in the pictures above.

While photographing the stunning plant, I realized I was being watched by our newest amphibian resident. Being ever the romantic, it's tempting to name him Prince, but I think instead I will call him Murray, after Bill Murray, who gets slimed by Slimer the ghost in "Ghostbusters." Why not just call him Slimer, you ask? Because that would be too obvious, of course.

I tried hard to capture a picture of the new fish, but they scooted under foliage anytime they noticed me looming above. I enjoyed watching all the fish school around together. The new fish are quite at home. We're now up to nine fish, egads! This isn't a great picture, but you can see one of the wee ones swimming with the "big" fish.

I am so jealous of the gorgeous dragonfly and damselfly pictures that many other garden bloggers get. Without a good zoom lens, I can't close enough to take a picture without the little guys flying away, if they even land near me. And yet I am happy to have as many as will come eat my mosquitoes and wasps and even some of the plentiful tadpoles. I definitely have noticed a decrease in mosquitoes since having the pond, though perhaps that has more to do with the drought, lol. Maybe bats are visiting my pond at night now. One could hope! Do bats eat wasps and hornets?

Just behind it was this caterpillar-eating menace. Can't it just eat webworms instead of my future butterflies?

And in my garden, I found this horrifying creature, the terrifying, shriek-causing, hide-all-your-plants-from Gigantic Grasshopper -- one of those that are so big they don't bother to jump at all -- they just fly their clumsy fly way out of reach. I knew I was making a mistake taking a picture of it when I should have just killed it -- it got away, flying to the branches of an oak tree. Which really bugged me! (pun intended) 

Ahhh, the Texas Rock Rose (Pavonia lasiopetala). Such a favorite. It's also known as Rose Pavonia and Rose Mallow. This gorgeous perennial is native to Texas and Mexico, but it is part of a larger family that has species native to various countries. Texas Rock Rose loves limestone-filled clay soil and doesn't mind the drought, which is good because I have plenty of both. And the little flowers really stand out against the limestone rocks of my pond and my stone house, looking like a miniature hibiscus or wild rose. But each individual part of the rock rose is as beautiful and fascinating as the rest. And as it turns out, the rock rose is a great plant to use for a lesson in flower anatomy.

Texas Rock Rose, like other flowering plants, is an angiosperm. In this case, it's considered a short-lived flowering perennial.

Each young bud is surrounded by green bracts, or modified leaves. The long, skinny bracts start out parallel to the bud, but then open up to reveal a whorl of green wider modified leaves called sepals.

You can see that the whorl of sepals is in a group of five. The sepals form a star when they open. The rock rose shows off this star shape again and again. It's a rock star! (Did you just groan? I heard that.)  

Despite my bad joke, the fact that the flower parts are in multiples of five is actually important. This indicates that the rock rose can be classified as a eudicot, one of the groups of angiosperms.

When the bud opens, the sepals are almost flat. They remain to protect and support the flower. Being green, they also contribute to photosynthesis. Together, the whorl of sepals is called the calyx. A star-shaped calyx.  :)

One reason I am drawn to this star theme is because Texas is known as the Lone Star State, making the star shapes in the flower very appropriate. But who can resist the way nature can produce such a perfect five-pointed star again and again?

As the sepals open, you begin to see the pink within. In this picture you can see a closed bud, an opening new bud, and an existing flower that has closed up. The rock rose flowers react to both temperature and light -- they will close up in the hottest part of the day and when it is dark.

When the bud opens to reveal the flower, you can see the whorl of five pink petals. This whorl is called the corolla. Some corollas are fused, but in the rock rose, the five petals are distinct. The rock rose also only has a single whorl of petals -- some other flowers have a double whorl. The calyx (sepals) and corolla (petals) together form the perianth. 

The bright pink flowers help to attract pollinators to the reproductive unit of the flowers. The rock rose flower is "perfect" in terms of botany; it has both male and female parts. Plants like these are also called hermaphroditic, or bisexual. They can self-fertilize or be pollinated by insects or wind, or at my house by getting brushed up against by dogs.

It's hard to miss the bright yellow pollen of the rock rose. But if you look closely at the pollen, you will see that the grains are clumped at the end of tiny pink filaments. The anther at the end of a filament produces the pollen. The filament and anther together form the stamen. The filaments are attached to the stamen tube, or staminal column, seen here as a white cylinder. All these parts together form the male part of the flower.

It is interesting to note that the plentiful pollen of the rock rose is sometimes gathered for its Vitamin E and other health benefits.

In the rock rose, the female structures are mostly hidden inside the staminal column. The female structures are collectively called the pistil. You can see the sticky stigmas protruding from the stamen tube. Some stigmas have little hairs on them. The stigmas are at the ends of the female tube, called a style. At the base of the style, the ovary contains the ovules, which in turn contain the female egg producers.  

The pollen lands on the stigma and germinates, growing a pollen tube down the style to the ovary and ovules. The sperm travel from the pollen down the pollen tube to fertilize the eggs within the ovules. And with a number of divisions, a seed is born! In the case of the rock rose, I understand the plant is a happy seed producer, to the dismay of some gardeners. At the moment, I don't mind if it spreads some. I have room.

In this photograph, you can see that some pollen grains have landed and adhered to a couple of stigmas.

Turning attention to the green portion of the plant, the lightly-toothed, velvety leaves of the Texas Rock Rose form an alternate pattern on the stem. I find it interesting that a single bud and leaf "stem" from the same node on the main stem.

I recently added another species of rock rose to the garden as well, Brazilian Rock Rose (Pavonia braziliensis). If it starts to gets out of control, too, I'll give priority to the native variety. Pretty white flower, you have been warned! 

The burgundy center provides quite the contrast to the white corolla. The petals are larger than that of the Texas Rock Rose, giving the corolla a more rounded appearance. From the back (see the crumpled petals in the background), the petals have a similar pink vein to that of the Texas Rock Rose.

Hey, even the burgundy forms a star shape!

Whatever the flower parts, whatever the species, the rock rose is beautiful. Dare I say, it's a star.

Entwined
© Great Stems

The darkness of night faded
I turn to the light of dawn
And gingerly I reach out

A shy and uncertain hand

Longing for love, and clinging

At the briefest hint of touch

 Will I be made the fool?
My denied hopes a tangled mess

Or will the tendrils of love entwine?

 Oh, be the rock on which I stand
And I will stand proud but grounded 

 Be the wall upon which I lean
And I will know comfort yet stay dependent

But hold my hand and love me
And I will bloom and grow

High and higher, unbound by rooted doubts
Upon the ladder of heart's embrace

Toward the warming sun above

And I shall be whole and happy

All because I reached, and you were there.

The photos show a glimpse of my young food garden: jack-o-lantern pumpkin, cantaloupe, and sugar pumpkin vines, with images of the tendrils of crossvine and caroline jessamine mixed in. The seedlings are growing well, and they are my babies. The cantaloupes are blooming now, and the jack-o-lantern pumpkins are teasing me with buds.
   A few days ago I saw my first squash vine borer moth (horror!), and the next day I went out and removed about 30 little brown eggs from my jack-o-lantern pumpkins. Hopefully I got them all. Seriously, I'm checking for eggs every day now. This task will get harder as the plants get bigger.  

I've planted 32 corn seedlings and all are growing. Yes, that's a lot of corn! But they all fit with this square-foot gardening.

I've had a few leaf-miners tunneling, but I haven't done anything about it. As far as I know, the overall plants will be fine, though I hate to see the pretty leaves tainted with trails.

And I've bought seeds for my third raised bed, for fall: carrots, beans, spinach, and zucchini. Looking forward to and terrified of attempting to grow even more veggies... But having fun, too.  :)  

I had an intruder today. Completely disrupted my garden picture-taking. WiseAcre, did you have something to do with this?

Everyone else seems to get pesky bunnies visiting their yard. Me, I usually get bugs, not Bugs Bunny.

Not even a Playboy Bunny.

Sorry, hunny-bunny!

It's just a funny bunny!

In the sunny.

(I guess I'm a little looney, too).

Today's post was supposed to be about my happy veggie gardens, but wildlife had other plans for me. Like our newest pond resident...

I found him peeking out at me from the dog pool. An actual frog for a change -- not a toad this time! It turns out that frogs are much harder to catch than toads. He darted under the water and far away each time we came too close for his comfort. We had to lower the water level by taking the dirty water from the dog pool (we give it to our plants; it was extra high from the rain a few days ago). And then we had to be extra sneaky with a big glass bowl, which we ended up bringing up under the frog. Once he was in there, he was quite willing to pose for some pictures. Or just stay like a statue lest we eat might decide to eat him. 

I decided to let him move into the pond. He was too cute to resist. Here he is on a pond rock, just before diving in. I'm not up on my amphibian species yet -- is he some species of leopard frog?

But the next day I made a different decision. I went to clean the rest of the water out of the dog pond and discovered, to my horror, that the toad eggs laid by the amorous toads of three days ago had already hatched and become tadpoles. Countless tadpoles. They were swimming like mad around the remaining water in the dog pool. Well, this called for a rescue. But they were not going into MY pond, by gosh. I decided to drive them to a nearby big pond.

First we had to get them out of the dog pool. We started by getting as much water as we could safely get from the pool and carting it around to area plants. Then we finally realized that it would be much faster to just pour water through a net into buckets and separate the tadpoles into their own bucket of water. The water got particularly filthy as the water level went down. The dogs tracked in a lot of mud after our rain the other day.

As we got closer to the bottom, we found even more tadpoles -- "baby" ones, haha. By the time we got all the tadpoles out, the count was in the thousands. I'm so glad we didn't attempt to put any in our pond. There's enough in there already! Bucket filled, let's go!

Seatbelts on, children!

We drove over to the pond and added a little water from the big pond into the bucket to make the transition easier on the tadpoles. Then we poured them into the shallow water at the pond edge (first shooing away the minnows and other little fish that seemed to think we were there to feed them or something).

We made sure the tadpoles were swimming (not that we could have given them CPR or anything). They looked happy enough, and so were we.

So we celebrated with boba drinks. I worried that the pearls (tapioca balls) would remind me of toad eggs, and so they did. My choosing a green drink was totally (toadally) an accident, though!

See the resemblance? 

We had one more good deed of the day -- helping jump-start someone's car in the parking lot. Then it was time to head back home. And the dogs are happy to have a nice clean pool that they can muddy up again.

A little ID help needed! These aren't my usual weeds, so I thought I better confirm that they actually are weeds before I pull them. Can anyone help me out?

This one is growing way too close to my damianita. I was pulling other weeds at the time and something seriously irritated my skin -- if I'm correct it was this plant. The other ones were ones I pull all the time, like nutsedge and something with tiny white flowers. I should have taken a picture of that one, too -- it crops up all over my flower beds in the backyard. Next time on that one.  Edit: I believe this is Nettleleaf Noseburn (Tragia urticifolia) -- if it touches your skin, you will feel as though a dozen fire ants stung you, or a big ol' wasp got you. It hurts! It could possibly be Betonyleaf Noseburn as well (Tragia betonicifolia) -- in any case, it's a noseburn!

This next one started out as a two-lobed leaf, and I let it grow until it took some other shape. Now it looks like this. When it was smaller, there were a couple of suggestions about what it was, but it's changed so I'm re-submitting!

You can see a two-lobed leaf in this other one that's appeared nearby.

This one is similar, but the leaves are smaller and the lobes slightly different. So might be a different plant?

Thanks for all your help -- I just don't want to pull a friendly plant. Foes be gone, though!