Garden Girl

Burpee makes lawn busting kits! Great idea.

http://www.burpee.com/contentarticle.do?itemID=432

at Fig Tree Cottage. There’s not much going on in this well over 100* spell.
I get out early every morning & water the trees, berry patch & bushes (they seem to be liking the milk treatments & are thriving as much as anything can in this heat.)
I do feel grateful that I don’t live with any neighborhood lawn restriction other than keeping the grass under 3 inches, because it means I can forgo watering. Water is going to become an issue for us in CenTex , I think, since we have a population boom, limited aquifers & a trend toward hotter weather. So I’m all for letting my prairie grasses tough it out & if the St Augustine dies, I’ll plant a less wimpy cover crop where I must, or better yet: xeriscape with rocks & drought tolerant natives.
Other than my weekly venturing forth to the farmers market, I’m staying inside with my worm farm, plotting Fall tomatoes & reading gardening books.

continues. One extra tall, metal plant hanger for baskets of tomatoes & peppers successfully pedaled home by Mr. Garden Girl

Mr. Garden Girl set up the vermicomposter, making it all snug & ready for when our wrigglers arrive in a few days, while I made zucchini coins from the huge zukes that were part of our haul from the farmers market today. Along with a gorgeous bouquet of basil, which alone was worth the long bike ride in 100+ heat.

are likely at your farmers market now, if you live in CenTex & they are gooooooooood! Like the melon this year, I wonder if all this hot & dry hasn’t concentrated the flavor in some of our local produce & made for a good season for some edibles at least.
I hear some folks in other parts of the country complain about the prices at their farmers markets & I feel quite lucky. We bought two big dinners worth of hatch peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, yellow onion and eggplant for around $10.00 this week.
Also, we had Jeff Rodgers of Margarita Gardens give a great talk on basic gardening tech for our area, including showing off some plants than can handle the Texas sun just fine.
I like the idea that farmers markets can become a place not just to support local artisans & growers, but to share information & ideas and to build real community, so I give a definite thumbs up to the Pflugerville Farmers Market for inviting Jeff to speak.

Pam at the great victory gardners’ resource Red White and Grew

was kind enough to give my blog this award:

So now to pass it on, here are just a few of the Central Texas garden & sustainability blogs that I find uplifting.

Inner City Farmer

Trailer Park Girl

Zanthan Gardens

Gardening at Draco

& of course,  more Austin garden blog links can be found at the mother of all Austin Gardening blogs:

Digging

Oh & I meant to write about a strange encounter last night in my yard.
Near dusk as I was going out back to collect the recycling & garbage bins to put out for pickup, I came upon a cotton tail bunny near the SE corner of the cottage. She started a bit & scampered off a few feet into my yard, only to freeze out in the open still no more than 4 feet from me. I chided her gently, saying that taking cover really was a better camouflage option than simply freezing after a few short hops.
She merely regarded me.
So, after I collected the trash, I went in & told Mr. Garden Girl about the chance meeting & he went out to see her and she did the exact same thing to him.
He checked for a nest near the house and I did the same thing this morning– nope, no babies.
I wonder what she was up to?

In other critter news: I’m expecting my red wiggles for my vermicomposter in a few days, so look for posts on setting up a worm farm in one’s kitchen soon

There are challenges to urban gardening on the cheap.
That’s an understatement.
The amazing Gayla Trail of http://www.yougrowgirl.com/ has written about those challenges in depth and I find her to be an inspiration. Like her, I too garden on land not my own & that can come with certain stresses.
Take this morning for example.
I’m happily tippy tapping away at my keyboard when I hear the park’s ground crew outside my window.
& I peek out just in time to see them “edging” my blackberry plants, which granted, have gotten leggy, as blackberries are wont to do & have strayed outside of their raised bed.
You’d think dingoes took my baby-the cry I let out.
So, Mr. Garden Girl (who was more presentable than I) went out & showed them where the boundary between the empty lot next door & our yard was.
It was an honest mistake. Fences aren’t allowed so it can be hard to tell where one plot ends & another begins. They promised it wouldn’t happen again & apologized, but it got me thinking.
About how feelings of possessiveness come so naturally when we’ve put time and energy into nurturing lives (be they people, animals or even plants).
Again & again, I remind myself that it’s not about ownership, it’s about stewardship.
It’s about creating bounty for all, where we can.
And I remind myself that part of what the Fig Tree Cottage experiment is about (through both design & necessity) is learning to find and foster beauty and sustenance in less than picture perfect urban neighborhoods (places like, say– a trailer park ), because– that’s where a lot of us will live, maybe especially in economically unsure times.
More than anything, I want to show than virtually *anyone* in *any situation* can grow some food.
It sounds simple, but to me it’s a profound idea.
An idea that plants a seed in peoples’ hearts to take more initiative and control of their lives, for themselves, for their families and for their neighbors.
Because, as Mr. Jalopy pointed out this morning, we increasingly don’t own what we think we own anyway.

Now, granted, my garden is more of a plan for a garden right now (still crossing my fingers than I can get some herbs & greens in the raised beds for Fall), but I’m in this for the long haul and I hope that by journaling here I can share what I learn about how a tight budget in less than ideal surroundings can still afford a more sustainable and fulfilling life.

The Texas sage in the empty lot next door is alive with bees– honey bees and even a bumble or two. My own crepe myrtle bush behind the cottage is home to a dozen or more lady bugs. Even in the midst of a dry scorching summer here there is life. My peach tree has made a remarkable recovery. The willow stump out front has foliage taller than me now.
And on the ride yesterday to the tea house, we came upon a hawk with a fresh rabbit feast (there were kids & parents on the bike path too & I wonder how many kids got a lesson about the circle of life, rather close up & gory- heh).
Pictures of all this except for the hawk at his/ her repast:

Can you spot the bee?:

Tags: gardengirl, victory garden

Homegrown Evolution: Gardening in an Apartment Windowsill

Something to make your weekend

Honestly, I don’t know if the raised beds here will be ready by Fall. I haven’t started to build compost yet, the summer looks like it’ll be a dry, nasty, over a 100* often- as- not affair, & I’d like to save money for a jujube & a (probably white) mulberry tree next Spring.

I know mulberries are messy, but I love ‘em.
I’m trying to follow permaculture logic– start with trees & create micro climates, & when you have established zones of shade, sun, & protection, *then* put in your ground crops.
The mulberry tree will complete a semi circle of fruit trees we’ve planted close around the house (sides & back) that will provide weather protection for Fig Tree Cottage & bring in some birds.
The jujube will go out front to give us a head start on having a tree to replace the Bradford pear, which I expect to start dropping branches & being a problem child in just a few more years.