GBBD July 2008

We are in the hot dry part of summer here in North Texas.

The ground is dry and the plants are waiting for rain.

Blooms this time of year are the tough bunch, the tried and true, the natives.

Here is the Texas Star hibiscus. Just the flower this time. No silliness

Grandpa Ott's morning glory comes up from seed every year. It begins to bloom in July and keeps on until late fall.

These are the very first Turk's cap blooms. A little pitiful, but give it a chance. Come September this baby will put on a show with a nekid lady. Sorry, silly came out.

Thanks again to Carol of May Dreams Garden for hosting Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Gardening Injury

I don't like to water my perennial borders. The plants need to be tough to make it around here. This means plants that can live on very little extra water, so I rely on native and adapted plants. There are no ferns, no hydrangea, no hostas, or any other water hungry plants in my perennial beds. At this time of year these plantings look pretty pitiful. I have really let them go and the weeds were pretty bad. The ground was so dry that I had to turn on the water hose, soak the ground, and then pull the weeds. It is a pretty effective weeding method, water hose in one hand, weed with the other. It is also pretty fast, the weeds just come right out.

So anyway, I was watering and weeding and watering and weeding and then it happened. I pulled up hard on a particularly stubborn weed, the weed came free, and my elbow went right up into my most thorny rosebush. I ended up with several rose thorns in my upper arm. One especially big one right in the softest part right above my elbow. OwwWWWwwww.

Got any weeding techniques to share?
Any gardening related injuries?

Camping Exhaustion

After a lot of acting like this.

We all feel like this

Salsa: Another Vegetable Massacre

I was going to simply post a recipe, but thought I picture would be better

Tomato, onion, jalapeno peppers, chili pequino, garlic, lime, Worcestershire sauce, sea salt, cilantro (dry this time).

Can't keep the teenage monkey out of it.

The Next Survivor Series

My sister sent me this. I thought you might enjoy it.

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes. There is no fast food. Each man must work a full time job, take care of his 3 kids, keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money. In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment .

He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care and one 'emergency' run to Wal Mart at 10:00 p.m. to pick up poster board for a school project that is due the next day. He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function. Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times. The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done. The men must shave their legs, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails manicured and eyebrows groomed.

They must find an hour every day to attend an exercise class of some kind, or at least work out on the treadmill at home. During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure bleeding from somewhere in their groin area, severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

They will be solely responsible for feeding all pets and cleaning up after them.

They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth, comb their hair and fix their lunches by 7:00 am. A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up. The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enoug h energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice. The winner gets to play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right To be called Mother!

Opps

Sorry, y'all. I have been going on and on about my three sisters plantings. I was so happy with my first group of five that I planted two more. The first groups have popcorn, red noodle beans, and heirloom squash varieties. The popcorn varieties are strawberry and calico. The squash varieties are straight and crook necked yellow squash, and three types of zucchini include the cute little Ronde de Nice.

In the two new plantings, I planted sweet corn, more squash varieties to be determined and regular green yard long beans. Another pumpkin vine showed up and it gets to stay as well.

My popcorn is beginning to put out tassels. This prompted me to do some research. So after the fact, I go look up how to grow, harvest, and store popcorn. Step 1 pick your varieties with this warning "Don’t plant popcorn and sweet corn near one another, as they will both suffer if their is cross pollination." CRAP. I can only hope that the popcorn is finished with the pollination thing before the sweet corn starts it. I still have so much to learn.

Here is the article from gardenguides.com. There are some good popcorn recipes. That's right folks, popcorn recipes.

Have you made any gardening mistakes this year? Do you have popcorn recipes to share?

Wild Pumpkins Have Invaded My Garden

There are two mystery vines growing in our garden. I thought they were muskmelon and left them because they are so easy to grow. Well, the vines didn't look quite right. The leaves were too big for melon and the vines were too thick. Then one of the monkeys touched the a vine and said it had stickers. They did have spiny vines, not really stickers, but definitely prickly. There were plenty of male flowers, but I had not seen any fruit yet. The things are about eight feet long and I have had to train the vines to keep them out of the pathways. I finally found a female flower and I think we have pumpkins. I have never successfully grown a pumpkin, so we will have to see what happens. Once again, my garden has gone wild. I don't have the heart to pull them out. They are going to get huge and my garden is tiny. Wish me luck.

Oh, btw, we don't spray here. If a bug has to be disposed of it is done by hand. We prefer to let biodiversity balance the bug situation. Wisdom of the Trowel has an awesome beneficial bug post. Check it out.