New blooms

Burgundy okra and cactus

A handful harvest

Can't wait to have a vegetable garden in the front with full sun! But for now, just small part-sun harvests. Chopped san marzano tomato tossed in olive oil and vinegar with farfalle pasta, goat cheese, toasted pine nuts, and basil. Pretty tasty.

On this morning's walk

Still some spring wildflowers at Walnut Creek. And vultures. Also, bull nettle with its formidable defense system. If you ignore the incredibly humid morning air, a lovely walk.

Curlicuke

So, I had to look through my plant tags when I noticed this cucumber start to go all spiral on me. It's a suyo long, something Great Outdoors nursery had in stock (I think they do well with heat). It's different (and a bit nibbled by someone), but probably not a great pickling shape.

This is the second year I've tried cucumbers in my shady backyard, and I just found out from Travis Co master gardeners that the reason I'm not getting more is a lack of pollination. I knew which flowers were female, but I didn't realize that the mini-cucumber on them still needed pollination. Here's the link they sent me for hand pollination, helpful because my backyard is green with only a few flowering herbs. All the pollinators are in front on the flowers. You learn something new everyday you garden. Especially when you ask questions.

The trouble with cottonwoods

Okay, I may have complained here already, but enough already with the cotton snow! This is the worst cottonwood fallout I've ever been through, nearly 6 weeks of this stuff drifting down, coating everything, sending up seedlings in every pot or patch of dirt. Wednesday night's thunderstorm had the great effect of making a lot of it disappear from the deck and yard, but the next day it just started coming down again, in big clumps. Maybe I should be industrious and learn to make yarn from it. Sigh. I look forward to a summer of cotton-free shadiness and the sound of rustling leaves.

Wednesday evening, just before the storm blew in:

Post rain, this stuff ends up on all of us:

Making the most

Drove past this zinnia patch in Stockdale this afternoon. It's a couple feet wide by at least 25 feet long of the healthiest, most vibrant zinnias I've ever seen. And it's less than 10 feet from the highway that cuts through town. What if everyone just packed in gardens where they could, sort of European style? How great would that be... Also, I need to get my zinnia seeds in the ground pronto.

Tropical blooms

I visited my parents in Corpus Christi this weekend, stayed in their newly renovated "guest cottage" (so serene), and got to see more gorgeous flowers than I could shake a camera at. These are all from their garden.
A new hanging basket with portulaca outside the cottage


Queen's crown vine

Bicycle as garden art

Bronze fennel in bloom

Pink turk's cap (I have one from a cutting started in my garden; hopefully it will be this healthy soon)

This creeping rangoon has climbed about twenty feet up the chinese tallow tree alongside my parents's house

A few feet away, this abandoned ficus totally outgrew its pot and is now taller than the house. Ah, the tropicals do love it in Corpus