By Jannie Vaught El Nino is officially here. The ocean temperatures have risen. Does that mean rain and storms? And this morning is it raining a nice soft rain, all my rain barrels are full to overflow and the garden is growing. It was time to feed the onions and check the baby spinach to make sure it is growing as it should. The new … Continue reading The Hard Earned Gains of Three Years
By: Jannie Vaught 2015 is the International Year of Soil If you eat and live on planet earth you know without soil, good soil we will cease to do either eat or live. The United Nations has declared it the year of soil, but do we really need the U.N. to tell us to take care of our soil? Anyone who farm’s, ranches, has groves of … Continue reading The Year of Soil
By: Jannie Vaught It is another rainy day here in the Hill Country. And this gardener is so thankful I could just shout! Thank You!! The wild flowers will be absolutely wonderful this spring and the Blue Bonnets will just take your breath away. With the rain comes all the overdue chores in my house and pantry. I went thru my canned goods, and … Continue reading Planning Your Garden Early
By Jannie Vaught Frost outside this morning and all the critter water is frozen. Time to bust some water. But the winter green’s look so good! The turnips are sweeter and the collard greens are thriving. And oh my the kale is huge! Time to make kale chips. If you haven’t tried this it is easy and tasty. Lets go back to the onion. … Continue reading Onions Delight
By Jannie Vaught Onions…… How to grow and where to go to get starts for your growing area. Last week in the article I spoke of how to find your growing area. With that in your mind you also need to know if your soil is alkaline or acidic. You can have a soil test done and find out the ph. Most plants like one … Continue reading Making A Good Home For Growing Onions
By Jannie Vaught After the gloom overcast days it is so wonderful to see sunshine! This morning the garden list said “Look at Vegetable Planting Guide”. First you need to know what is your growing zone. Go to the USDA Hardiness zone finder, put in your zip code and there you are your planting zone. We are 8B here in central Texas, but this can also … Continue reading Time To Check The Vegetable Planting Guide
By Jannie Vaught December and it is looking like winter. The leaves are all falling and the dark comes early, but on the solstice the light returns. Meaning every day it gets bright earlier and the light stays longer in the day. And me and the chickens are going to bed at 6 o’clock! Some of us are seriously effected by loss of sun light. … Continue reading Getting Ready For The Spring Garden
By Jannie Vaught The potted plants that wind up in the trash! Well how about keeping them year after year. Being that I repurpose and recycle, I look at all things with a different perspective. Often this is how it goes. “Now what can I use this for and how can I keep it thriving.” So it goes for Mum’s, one of the favorite … Continue reading Mums and Poinsettias
By Jannie Vaught The garden now is beautiful! The Ott’s Morning Glories are breath taking. All the Mustard, Collards and English Peas are growing rapidly and the garlic is going in next week with the temperatures finally going down. I already am planning what’s going in and what is not. Every season is a learning experience. Yes, tomatoes are always at the top of the … Continue reading The Fall Garden Is Better Than The Spring
By Jannie Vaugh Garlic fresh from the garden or bought from the store, life and health attune with this wonder globe. Types of garlic are soft neck and hard neck. Covered those last week, you can search on line there are many places to buy from and select what suits your fancy, for example: Inchelium red Rocamboles Purple stripe Marble stripe Porcelain Turban … Continue reading Garlic Is A Foodies Best Friend
By Jannie Vaught Garlic, Allium Sativum is a species in the onion genus Allium. Native to central Asia it is used both culinary and medical purposes, is a boulbous plant. Sometimes called the food of the gods. I call it deliscious and cook with it daily, only the cookies don’t have garlic! And I use it for treating colds, flu and sore throats. … Continue reading Garlic, The Food Of The Gods
By Jannie Vaught The Fabulous Fig!! Ficus carica, is prized for it’s sweet fruit and lovely large leaves. The fig is adapted to Texas soils and and many gardeners treasure growing this beauty. The fruit is sweet and rich in calcium, iron, minerals, vitamin A and C. This fruit is actually a flower. Fig flowers are produced inside the hollow pear shapes that become … Continue reading The Fabulous Fig!!
By Jannie Vaught Another morning in the garden and as I was tending and doing more summer clean out, I realized that some of my raised beds were compacted and hard to dig into!! Gasp!! It is always so light and fluffy; so I decided to hand dig 12 inches down and pull out all old root and plants, next I got out my seed … Continue reading Improving Sub Soil Structure with Nature’s Growing Helper
By Jannie Vaught As trees go, the humble Hackberry is much misunderstood . I have a thriving specimen that has been a shade treasure and has grown into a wonder tree. I hear it called a trash tree and is often removed with not much thought. Here are some thought and history for this noble tree: The Hackberry, Celtis Laevigata … Continue reading The Humble Hackberry Tree
By Jannie Vaught The subject of fall garden has been the topic of conversation. Are you putting in a fall garden is what I usually get asked and Yes is the answer! A fall garden is often more productive and use less water. Always a plus. Another oldie but goodie garden plant are Collard Greens. Collards are in the brassica family along with cabbage, … Continue reading Collard Greens: The Poor Mans Crop
By Jannie Vaught The garden seems to be on vacation as the sustained heat has all but dried everything to a crisp. But there is a friend in the garden that is still going strong and that is OKRA!! Abelmoschus Esculentus, AKA, lady fingers, bhindi, bania and gumbo. A flowering plant in the Mallow Family. The origins of this plant is disputed, Africa, Egypt … Continue reading OKRA!! Still Going Strong
By Jannie Vaught Just so you know the first estimated frost date for our county is Nov. 13. Last frost date is March 18. This is an estimate since our weather seems to be changing daily. For Thanksgiving spinach try this: Spinach has a 6 week duration from seed to plate. Mid August would be a good first plant time, then … Continue reading Planting The Fall Garden
By Jannie Vaught When the temperatures are Hot and we are all watching our water usage it is then that we start to really get the real picture– Native Plants! The trees and plants that are from your area and have lived through and thrived in every type of temperature and water shortage. When we are new to a place we tend to … Continue reading Learning about Native Plants
By
Jannie Vaught
Time to plan for your fall and winter garden!
Already?
As the twilight of the cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes happens it is again time to consider the bountiful fall garden. First tomatoes, when your plants start to wither and show signs of stress, that’s when the pruners come out. Clean them up by removing all succors, dead branches and chop them to about 18 inches. Leave enough foliage leaves so they can regenerate. These shortened plants will become your fall tomatoes and will produce well, even green tomatoes if the frost is early.
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By Jannie Vaught Tomatoes! The one I patiently wait to ripen, and this year is a “doozie”. They took their own sweet time to ripen, then all of a sudden my counters are loaded with beautiful tomatoes. Here are some cool facts about the tomato: Thought to originate in Peru, the name comes from the Aztec word “xitomatl”, which means, … Continue reading Xitomatl
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