Yay! I win. I’m all caught up. So here’s what I’m doing this weekend. First, we planted a Teddy Bear Magnolia in the small bed near our back stairs. This ornamental bed has been driving me crazy since we moved in. Someone put a hydrangea in that bed, which a) is stupid in Texas, and b) is stupid in that location. This is my most difficult spot on our property because it gets complete shade until about, oh, noon. Then blazing sun until about 2:00. Then shade. Nice. Pretty much nothing prefers those conditions, and not many plants will even tolerate it. Also, I’ve been thinking it would be nice to add some screening material between our house and our neighbor’s. As much as I love her, my back door looks right into her den, where she spends her evenings. She waves at me. It would be nice for both of us if there was a touch more privacy, I think. So I took my troubling conditions and desires, and I consulted with the awesome folks at Shades of Green (see sidebar). Much to my surprise, we ended up choosing a magnolia! Being from the south, I adore magnolias. But my internal image of a magnolia is a huge beast on big properties. Enter the Teddy Bear. It’s branches stay closed up like an umbrella, and it only gets to about 17 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, unpruned. I’m in love.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

DPM
strawberries*
winter herbs (dill, cilantro)*
garlic*
parsley*
chives* (divide and replant the ones you have)

CCMG
garlic* (before 15th)
kale (before 15th)
leeks
lettuce* (before 15th)
onions* (before 15th)
radish
rutabaga (before 15th)
spinach*
turnip (before 15th)

I bought veggie starts of broccoli, cauliflower, buttercrunch lettuce, and cabbage. I know that’s kind of cheating, but they don’t cost much, and it’s nice to have an early crop while the seeded crops are coming in.

I harvested 54 heads of garlic this year, so both Lori and I will be planting out garlic from my stash. What a great feeling!

All I need now is onion starts and strawberries. I experimented last year with spring and fall strawberry beds. The fall bed did far better than spring. So I’m fully on board with adding strawberries to my fall planting list, which I read about in the Texas Gardeners magazine (see sidebar).

It’ll be good to get back into the garden, after being gone for a month.

Cucumbers on the left, soybeans in the middle, pole beans and bush beans in the foreground.

Again, for the sake of record-keeping, I’ll post the September planting list and harvest update, so I can move on with the October list.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

DPM
cold hardy vegetables
onions (seeds and starts)

CCMG
beets (after 15th)
cabbage* (before 15th)
carrots*
chard, swiss (before 15th)
collards
garlic* (after 15th)
kale
lettuce*
onions*
peas, english (I have found peas difficult in the fall; although if I had been home, I might have done it.)
radish
rutabaga
spinach*
turnip

HARVESTING:
I harvested many pounds of sweet potatoes from the driveway bed at the end of August. This was my first time growing them, and it was a great success. They definitely take up a lot of room, but I love them, so it’s worth it. My husband doesn’t share my enthusiasm, so no need to grow too many. I cured them on the side porch for a couple of weeks, and now they’re in a brown paper bag in our hallway, with the bags of garlic.

The peppers, both sweet and hot, continue to come on strong. I have another round of freezing the sweet peppers ahead of me. I’m confident that we’ll have plenty for the winter and spring. And we have enough dried hot peppers to keep Jan happy, too.

Finally, the okra is still producing happily. It’s such a big, beautiful plant to have in the garden. Just a pleasure, as long as you wear gloves while harvesting. Those fine little hairs stick in my arms and drive me to distraction for the next hour after harvest. However, my neighbor says he kind of likes the feeling, so you may, too. That might explain why he harvested our okra twice while I was gone. We share alike in this neighborhood!

The driveway bed, with zinnias in front, basil behind, and okra behind that.

OK, I realize this list is coming waaaay late. But for the sake of documentation, I’m doing it anyway. I spent August rushing to make preparations for a month out of the country. So I actually did get my planting done, I just didn’t get a chance to write about it. I’m back now, and planning on catching up with my garden, both real and virtual.

I spent many hours before I left (all first thing in the morning of course, lest I get a heat stroke) cleaning the spring plants out of the beds and preparing for fall. I was very excited to see that, for the first time since we’ve been here, I have too much material for my compost pile. This is an excellent development, because we bring in straw for our compost piles. I would love to close that loop in our garden and create all of our own browns.

Once the spent plants were removed, the bed preparation consisted of adding compost and tilling it in. Because we have heavy clay soil in this area, many people recommend applying expanded shale (once), which breaks up the clay and improves the soil tilthe. I’ve never done it previously, because I’m quite happy with compost. But after talking with a bit of a fanatic at a party next door, I decided to run a little experiment in one bed. So I also applied a 1-inch layer of shale to one of the front beds where the fall crops will go. I’ll report back.

OK, on with the planting list:

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

DPM

arugula
beans*
broccoli*
brussel sprouts
cabbage*
carrots*
collards
lettuce*
mustard
parsley*
spinach*
watermelon

CCMG
beans
mustard
cauliflower
corn
cucumber*
kale
kohlrabi
peas, southern
potatoes*
rutabaga
squash
turnip

I have to preface this by saying that it was a complete leap of faith for me to do my initial fall planting and then get on a plane. While Jan has the best of intentions, I can’t expect him to look after my garden the way I do, and newly seeded beds generally need to be kept moist for a week or so. Fortunately, we had about a week and a half of rain right after I left, and he was saved!

I planted potatoes left over from the spring harvest into my fabric bags, in straight compost, on 11 August. I still haven’t dialed in the whole potatoes thing, and upon return I see they haven’t sprouted yet (it took about 3 weeks last year). I’m wondering if, even with the rain, they didn’t get enough moisture. That is one problem with the bags, as they are completely above ground.

I also planted cucumbers that day. By the time I got back on 28 September, they had grown to the top of the support and are starting to set cukes.

Finally, the week before I left (late Aug/early Sep), I planted bush beans (Royalty Purple Pod), pole beans (Stringless Blue Lake), carrots (Chantenay), chives, soybeans, marigolds and mammoth clover. Everything but the chives had germinated nicely by my return. I decided not to plant the cool weather crops, like broccoli and cauliflower, until my return. It was still pretty hot, and those things germinate better when it’s a touch cooler. Like now.

The mammoth clover is another experiment. I’m using it as a cover crop/green manure. I’ve seeded the half of the driveway bed that isn’t currently in okra. I’ll leave it until spring, then mow it down and till it under. If I can rotate this type of crop through the beds, then I can pull back on the amount of compost that I bring in from off-site. Another step in closing the loop on our little property.

It’s official, Make McKinney Weird is one year old. OK, it’s not official. It will actually be on 8 June. But the June planting list is the first month that I’m circling back on information already discussed last year. Pretty cool.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

okra*
pumpkin*
squash

If you look at last year’s list, you’ll notice this one is much shorter. That’s because over the course of the last year, I realized that two of the four resources I was using were too general to be very useful in our little corner of the world. The two sources we’re left with (listed above), combined with my experiences and those of my neighbors, leaves me with what you see here. So my planting lists are improving. Go with the most recent one.

And I should note that this month, CCMG actually doesn’t recommending planting anything. They say to get your okra in by 1 June. And wait until July to put your squash and pumpkin. So if you feel like it, relax! You could have a lovely month of harvesting, with no planting chores to attend to. That’s OK, you’ll be busy enough keeping up with the watering. I looked at our electric bill yesterday, and from May to June we go from using almost no a/c to using it every day! So prepare yourself.

I harvested one last big batch of shelling peas a few days ago, then pulled up the plants. I’ll be adding compost and planting my okra in that spot today. I’ve been soaking the okra seeds. They germinate so much better when they’re soaked first. If you don’t soak them, be sure to keep the planting bed moist every single day. Trust me. I had to replant the entire okra bed last year. But that’s OK. They’re so forgiving. And they won’t grow much anyway, until it’s hot, hot, hot.

I also harvested the entire garlic bed this week. 54 heads of garlic, in 7 different varieties! Last year we had only 14 heads, and ran out of garlic early. This year, I intend to get through to the next harvest without purchasing a single head of garlic from the store.

The onions are a different story. I planted most of the onion sets around the garlic this spring. I think they got too much shade from the garlics, so they have weak tops. I’m leaving them in the ground a bit longer to see if they beef up. Fortunately, I also planted some sets in other spots, and I have both Egyptian Walking Onions and Multiplier Onions in the ground from the fall. So we’ll be OK for our fresh onion needs, but I’m concerned about our storage onions. We made it almost all year from last summer’s harvest, so I’ll be bummed if I don’t get enough this year.

And finally – drum roll, please – I got my first tomato! I would love to tell you what it was, but I don’t know. I got half of my tomato transplants from my neighbor, and the other half from the Feed and Seed. Neither of those sources is big on labeling their transplants. So this year’s tomato fest is a total surprise. We’ll get what we get, and we won’t throw a fit (as my daughter’s teacher used to say).

We have had the most lovely, wet spring. After too many years of drought, this is such a relief. With all of the time I’m not spending watering, you’d think I would get around to writing more – but I’m afraid Jan and I spend too much time sipping wine on the porch, which just saps my productive energy right out of me. I’m afraid that’s why he brings me the wine; the Protestant work ethic makes him nervous.

Of course, the rain has not been such a blessing for some of my gardening friends. I have two friends gardening on one particular street, and their gardens both flooded. The weeks of standing water has done them no favors.

The first week of May, I planted sweet potatoes, Beauregard. What a great name. Makes me think of mint julips. I also got ahold of some gorgeous purple and white Dutch irises, due to the street construction that’s been going on since July. Of last year. 2008. Guh. Anyway, the city installed a sidewalk in front of a neighbor’s house, right through her tremendous iris garden. We all consoled her for a couple of minutes, then jumped in and swiped the uprooted irises. Next spring you’ll see them blooming all up and down our street. Heh.

sweet potatoes

To make room for the sweet potatoes, I pulled up some underperforming broccoli, broccoli raab, and spinach. All of these did well for me in the fall, but weren’t worth the time and space this spring. Maybe it was the multiple late freezes this year.

We’re currently harvesting:
shelling peas
snow peas (I’m not sure how I ended up with those; I don’t care for them.)
green onions
chives
stevia
strawberries (still mostly going to the mockingbirds, but Ella gets a few here and there)
banana peppers
jalapenos
marjoram
oregano
cilantro (the last of it was a week or two ago; the rest has bolted)

Our neighbors came over with new potatoes from their garden, but I haven’t dug into ours yet. A few potatoes go a long way in our house, so I can wait.

Everything else is going gangbusters. Even my corn looks fantastic. Last year it got bugs then blew over. That was Luscious. So this year I planted Painted Mountain. So far, so good.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be making my last harvest of peas, and pulling the plants to make way for the okra. Of the peas I planted, I would do Alaska and Wando again. I’ll stay away from Little Marvel and Oregon Sugar Pod. I’m not in any hurry to get my okra in, because everyone up and down the street seems to have planted some this year. So we’ll have plenty all season long.

Which reminds me, three of my neighbors (within a few blocks) have planted new gardens this year, including my next door neighbor, Rick. Who knows if having my veggie garden in the front yard has helped inspire anyone other than Rick, but it can’t hurt, right? I’d love to see everyone with at least a little patch of food growing. Maybe it’ll go viral in old McKinney. That would be weird. Good weird.

I thought I had it all figured out, with my previous anti-cat device. And I was close. Just not there yet. It turns out that the straw keeps the cats away when it’s fresh. But as it decomposes and softens, they come back. I don’t know if they test the ground every day, or every week, but they come back. You would think they would look for greener pastures. But apparently, cats prefer anything to grass. And my yard is full of anything but grass.

Fear not! I have tweaked my technique, and arrived at the final solution. I’ve been using this method for about 6 months now, and it’s perfect.

I actively manage the crepe myrtles along the west side of our house. Meaning, I prune them pretty regularly, to keep them away from the house and away from the driveway. Nothing like getting poked in the eye when you step out of your car. Anyway, normally I would take the small branches from each session and drop them in the compost pile. When I realized my straw wasn’t doing the trick, I started dropping the branchlets between the crepe myrtles, instead.

You can see some pokey bits sticking up between the trees. Voila! No more poop. I’m so happy. This would work in a more active bed, too, you would just need to move them out of the way when planting or cleaning the bed at the end of season, then move them back in around the plants when they’re settled. There are actually devices on the market that would work the same way. But they’re small and I’m cheap. So I’ll stick with this.

With all of the compost and mulch and leaves in this bed, it doesn’t look too bad, either.

I planted four types of mint last summer, which is quickly filling in (NOT cat mint, btw). So this is the first area that I’d say is pretty much done. Time will do its thing, and I’ll keep pruning.

Here’s a picture of the glory of this bed in summer:

It’s perfect solar design, too. Leafy coverage in the baking west sun of summer. Then they lose their leaves to let the winter sun warm our little house. Couldn’t be more perfect.

Last July, I started a couple of compost experiments. As I was using up one bin full of compost today (four heaping wheelbarrows full), I realized that these two experiments have been officially completed.

First, I spread partially-completed compost on my back garden as mulch last July. Since I put everything from our kitchen, absolutely everything organic (in the original dust-to-dust meaning of the word), into our pile, I was curious to see how quickly it would break down when finished as mulch. I was also a tad worried about the neighbor complaining about the not-perfectly-neat appearance of some of the larger bits. I’m happy to report no complaints (well, about the compost anyway) and also that the recognizable bits weathered away very quickly. I’m very happy with the rough compost as mulch concept, and did it again today.

Here is my baby grape vine, waking up from winter dormancy, with a fresh bed of compost mulch:

I spread it all in the back garden, fruit trees, elderberries, mountain laurel. I didn’t have enough for the entire garden, but most of it. Ours has to be one of the few companies that shreds and composts our old office documents. That’s privacy, folks. You can see some clumps of Starbucks coffee in there, too.

My second experiment is the one I’m really excited about. Eight months ago, I added a good bit of cotton fabric to my pile (see picture and explanation in the first post). I had almost forgotten about it, until I encountered a few scraps in the middle of the pile today. Just a few! Almost all of the fabric has broken down into small enough bits that I didn’t notice it among the other chunks. The few larger pieces that I did notice got tossed back into an active pile today for finishing. So I can confidently say that my fabric + coffee grounds recipe is a keeper. That’s good to hear because I’ll be starting work on some organic cotton canvas shopping bags for this year’s farmer’s market tomorrow (yay!).

So today was a good compost day. Now that we’ve been in the house for almost two years, we are really starting to create some materials flow. I pulled out the final bit of the fall garden and filled up one compost bin to overflowing:

The wheelbarrow is full of materials from my neighbor’s fence bed, to start the new active bin. I weeded and gathered leaves from her driveway. Ain’t I nice? She said if we move, she’s following us. Heh. Anyway, we’re still not a closed-loop system. I buy hay from the Feed and Seed to mulch veggies and to balance the greens in our compost piles. I also buy finished compost in bags (organic cotton burr compost) every time I plant a new crop. We just don’t make enough yet. I’m not sure we ever will, on this size lot. But the pace is definitely picking up. I’ll check in next spring and see if we hit a plateau.