I have a lawn, yet I do not wish to be a grass farmer. I have seen a few neighbors let their grass die, and they have no other visual interest in their yard. Watching my yard carefully, I thought that established plants would be doing alright, and my plantings for an early fall crop would suffer. The gardener’s shadow proved me wrong. A gardener’s shadow? Well, it is the best tool that you have in taking care of your garden: your walking around the garden to observe the plants causes a shadow to fall. My shadow held surprises for me that will change what I plant next year.

    When I moved into my home, there was a grouping of azaleas on a north facing wall. These are wonderful flowers, but the plant does not hold much interest for me during the remainder of the year. I use it as a backdrop for other leaf textures and colors. I guess that is why I do not focus on it too much. What I did see was half the plants doing well, while the other half suffered more. It turned out that this had to do with mulching. The mulch plants appeared less stressed. However, the water restrictions lead to even the mulch plants being stressed eventually. I was planning to add azaleas to the garden, but this has changed my mind. The camellias succumbed to the water restrictions as well.
    The roses look stressed, yet they do bloom. The blooms only last for a day. The roses have new growth along with fading leaves. I intend to keep them alive, but I do not want the flowers at this time. I am thinking that I should deadhead them before they bloom to allow the rose to focus on other matters. We will see. The plant that surprised me with several large blooms is a hibiscus. I am growing this one for the flowers to make a tea. The other hibiscus plants have not bloomed, but they look alright. This one was planted this summer. I found it on sale, and I did not think that it would survive. Ample mulching is the key. I do have caladiums for color. Although they love the heat, they deplore the lack of water. These bulbs were given to me as a gift, and I do not think that I will buy any. Another attractive leaf is from the coleus plant. These have done quite well. Even ones planted just before the water restrictions.
    The vegetables have been my biggest surprise. Winter vegetables in the shade continue to do well. This is not the time to harvest them, unless you do not mind the flavor. The corn, beans and squash planted from seed shortly before the water restriction were announced are doing quite well. Also the green onions in a pot that were planted from seed. I only water the pots when I can water the garden, so these are doing better than I thought. I guess this has to relate to the potting soil holding the moisture longer. Pepper plants only obtaining around six hours of sun are growing, while the plants obtaining over six hours are stressed. This maxim holds true for the eggplants too. The jicama, horseradish, ginger, and glanaga plants keep growing. Several herbs are abundant. I think my family may tire of basil.
    The biggest take away for me has been mulch and a healthy soil. The soils with more organic matter, compost, mixed into it composition are doing better. Areas of the garden with heavy compost (more than three inches) have done alright too. The beds that do not have heavy organic mulches, but rather a rock mulch of two inches have done well. My favorite rock mulch is the lava rock, because when it breaks down, the plants benefit from the nutrients.  The other observation is do no try to force plant choices. Non native plants may thrive under these conditions, but I think that I will investigate natives more for next year. I will have to plan out the vegetable beds based on amount of sun during the different times of year, so charting this is not a bad idea. How have you coped with the restrictions?

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.

At the store this morning, I felt a bit of sticker shock. The can of coffee that was selling for $6.99 not too long ago was priced on sale at $8.99, and are those cans becoming smaller? Most of my surprises have been with staples other than vegetables, because I have not bought many. I am obtaining about 95% of my fruit and vegetable consumption from the garden. Yet, this has not been a great year so far. The drought seems to have played havoc with my loquat tree. This fruit is usually available to me by March, but I do not think that I will have any this year. The plums are coming, but the birds have gone after the unripe green plums. Still these setbacks have not been so detrimental.
    The cucumber vines that were planted when the weather warmed have produced. My favorite cucumber preparation is to peel the skin; slice them; and marinate them in a rice vinegar/sugar mixture. This makes for a light salad. I also like making a more German style cucumber salad. The cucumber slices are salted. Later the water is drained off and the slices rinsed. The cucumber is mixed with onions, parsley, and a vinegar and oil dressing.
    The lettuce is beginning to bolt. Once the shafts arise from the plant to produce the flowers, the taste becomes more bitter. Lettuce does not like the warm weather. The red lettuce is holding out longer. Salads are becoming common place for meals right now at my house. I made a salad with blackberries and chopped peanuts last night. The blackberries were macerated with sugar. The lettuce was dressed quite popular. I wonder how long before the red lettuce goes to seed.
    The last of the peas were harvested. Peas are water hogs which prefer the cooler weather, so I was surprised that they lasted this long. Katya really took to the peas. The beans are starting to produce. Fresh young beans from the vine did not seem to need any cooking. A squeeze from an orange with a dash of sesame seed oil was great. A lightly boiled one collection of beans which were tossed with butter.
    I had moved my kale to a section of garden which is mainly shade. This has left the plants vibrant with a good flavor to the leaves. This will probably end soon, as kale looses its flavor with the heat. Then it is attacked by the bugs.  A few of my onions are large enough for harvesting, so I have done quick stir fries with the kale and onions.
    The tomato plants have only green fruit, and the pepper plants have had smaller specimens, but the eggplants are producing. I think some gardeners avoid eggplant, because they feel that it is too much work. The plant has to be staked like a tomato plant, and then there is the concern over bitterness. Fresh eggplant is not bitter (at least, I have never experienced bitterness from this vegetable when I pick it out of my garden). I broil slices; fry cubes, or throw shreds of eggplant into a stew. No salting and draining required.
    The squash has abundant blooms now. Maybe in a week this plant will give me my first zucchini or yellow squash. I planted the seeds when the weather warmed, so I have a good sized bush for many of my squash plants.  Otherwise, I have been using a good many herbs in my meals. I mix handfuls of parsley into my rice, cous cous, or bulghur. I like had this herb is treated like a vegetable or salad item in the Mediterranean diet.
    The best aspect for me is eating seasonally. The meals are changing over the course of the months. Yes, I would have liked a red tomato with my lettuce, but in Houston, these two plants will overlap in the fall. As a new vegetable grows, the smaller children have something new to excite them. What I did expect was for the family to become tired of winter vegetables. The two young girls became more fond of winter greens as the season for these vegetables progressed. Now, Katya asks if she will still be able to have her favorite kale for a meal. I wonder if she will feel this way about onions (if she can see the onion in the meal, she will not eat it).  I hope to add more plants in for the summer, but if this drought persists, then I will have to reevaluate my plans.

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.

There have been days with a mist of water on the ground on a few mornings. Is that why, they say that Houston is not in the extreme drought that the surrounding areas are already in? My latest project is creating spots to hold  water from the rain. Swales to catch water that is running off the property, but which are far from creating pools by the foundation. I had a large plastic pot from a tree that I overturned and placed into a hole to deal with one spot that has a water pool when it rains. I am thinking of adding more of these water basins. Finally I have more trenches to catch the water flow before it leaves my property. (I wonder if I can convince the city that this should reduce my drainage fee- wild hopes continue).

    The fact that my tomato plants have not been water hogs took me by surprise. I had not thought of burying the tomato plants deeper when transplanting, but this will be my method from now on. I am trying this trick with a few pepper plants, but I see no difference between them and my other plants. I am also trying the idea of planting the pepper plants with high mulch around the plant, but a basin near the plant. Again no real difference. Moving the mustard and chard to a shady spot helped them. They do get sun in the hottest part of the day with shade for the rest of the day. This is extending their season. Peas need quite a bit of water, and I am keeping them moist If they obtain regular watering, they keep producing. The beans have received no more water than most plants. They are producing pods now, and the plants look healthy, but maybe they need more water to be better producers.
   My roses were blooming quite well, and the bushes are full. Mulching them well has been a big help. I will need more watering if I wish to keep the flowers going. The only non-vegetable plants that have required much water have been the impatiens and allysum, both of which were newly planted. The one plant that would want more, but it is going fine with the amount that I am providing, is the grass. My grass is green, yet it is not lush or thick. I also do not mind the weeds (like dollar weed). The mint is growing into the grass, as are other herbs, so I am not concerned with one full carpet of grass.
    I am watering more than my neighbors. I am growing my own vegetables though. This will be the big challenge going forward: finding the right way to treat the plants to reduce my water usage, while still obtaining the results that I want. I am hand watering. I do find that sprinklers of any type do waster water. By hand watering, I am getting the water where it is needed: the ground for the roots. Deeper planting is working with a few plants, and the mulch is also a factor. The most important step has been being watchful. When the leaves looked stressed, I know that I need to water, so I am watching the plants. Walking through the garden each evening is relaxing, and that is the best way to reduce watering.

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.

“Hey, what is that plant?” “Do you have collards?” For some reason this past week, I had a few visitors stop by asking me what plants did I have in my front garden. Most people recognized the plants as vegetables, but they thought that some chrysanthemums and asters were vegetables as well. When a man standing next to my collards asked if I grew any collards, I had the revelation that people simply do not know how these plants look. They probably do not buy them as vegetables in their local grocery store.  Although other vegetables were asked about, I picked on collards, because it is one of those vegetables that many people seem to avoid.  My mother focused on more German dishes when I was growing up, since that was her comfort zone. Having moved to the South, we were exposed to collards, but we were told that you had to cook this leaf for a long time, and with a ham hock. My mother did not have time for such a vegetable, so it did not appear on her dinner plate.In reality, collards like kale can be prepared quite quickly by pan frying. Here are some photographs from my garden to help you identify these winter vegetables that do quite well in Houston.

Broccoli

Young cabbage before the head forms

Collards with a red lettuce about to go to seed

Fava Beans seem to do alright during our colder months

Garlic has a wider leaf than leeks

Horse raddish leaves are edible as well as the root

Curly leaf kale, edible variety (ornamentals can be eaten, but do not taste great)

Kohlrabi has leaves similar to broccoli, while arugula is light green

Leeks, smaller than garlic leaves at first

Curly and flat leaf mustards

Nappa or Chinese Cabage, lighter in texture and color than cabbage

Curly parsely

Swiss Chard, red and yellow stems help add color to winter meals

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.

Houston floods. It is a fact of life that is not always pleasant for my garden. I have placed mulches in various spots around my garden, only to see them washed away. I did not enjoy the idea of buying new mulch each year for all of my garden beds, particularly when I was trying to cut down on expenses. Using rocks and pebbles became my goal. Fortunately, there are many types to choose, which makes for some garden design a little more interesting.

    Iremember going to the gardens of palaces and castles in Germany as a kid. The use of rocks to create patterns stuck with me. My first foray into using rocks was in my front courtyard garden. I used a white granite in two triangle sections, and black Moon pebbles in the two other sections. What did happen over time is the white granite became stained brown with the falling leaves, and the two colors became mixed. I have kept this pattern, but it does take a bit of work to keep it up, which I do not think most homeowners would undertake. Sticking to one color was the lesson that I took away with me from this experience.

   My next use of rocks as a mulch came in a shade garden. A large tree in a corner of my back yard prevented grass from growing well, so I began to plant shade loving plants, focusing in on groundcovers. They were growing, but still I tracked mud into the house when I went out to my shed after a rain. The corner was also quite dark. I decided on a pebble mix that was lighter in tone to brighten up the area. This spot happens to be where rain water flows through the backyard to the front, so the pebbles stayed in place.

    My next project was by some trees in the front yard. During a couple of storms, my front yard flooded, taking away the mulch. I went with the pebbles that I had used in the backyard, which worked great, but I realized the look was not to my liking. I found a bag of red lava rocks which helped set off the orange and blue flowers in the two different beds. This made me consider the use of color more when choosing rocks as mulch. Garden centers do carry options, but the better choice may be to go to a business that specializes in stones. Most of these places will provide bags for you to fill up, which are weighed. The other option is they way your vehicle, then they weigh it after you have loaded  the rocks.

    I am using a compost mulch on vegetable beds and on beds where the plants cover the ground. No point in using rocks when they cannot be seen, or where I want the benefits of compost. Rock mulches do reduce the need for weeding, but like any mulch, you will still have some weeds pop through. I have used landscaping fabric; however, I have found that I need to redo this fabric every few years. As for leaves falling on the rocks, I have not been too concerned in most of the areas. I sweep or rake when needed. The only problem spot is the front courtyard. Sweeping and raking helps to mix the rocks, and the white granite stones do stain. We put a new coating of white stones on top of the old.

From a Houston garden to the table - A site dedicated to gardening and cooking in Houston.