Garden Girl

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.

Ready to eat!
Nom, nom, nom.

The weather was breezy & perfect & the lake was crowded with families.
We had our own independence celebration before we even left home tho. We took a small step toward food independence, by eating our first food grown in our yard- a truly luscious, ripe, sweet fig from our own tree.

It was truly a wonderful moment for us that made us feel like this really was our home. It’s nice that the first fig was sweet & nummy

May your holiday weekend be a fun and safe one!

http://thatotherpaper.com/austin/inspiration_san_franciscos_victory_garden

Yes! YES!
BRING IT!

green & white summertime

thanks to spacialist Mr. Garden Girl

Click the pic for more images of  the choked oak.

The house (now gone) that was next door had its front deck built around a live oak that then grew into the deck. When I got a dude from They Might Be Monkeys out to look at my trees, he spotted this & exclaimed that he wished he had a camera since he was doing a presentation on *the stupidest things done to trees*.
I offered to take some shots for him of this live oak. (Ever see the x rays of the guy who survived a railroad spike thru his head or some such? This reminds me of that. )

All yesterday I was pleading with the clouds, “open up, let it go… slow at first please or it’ll all be wasted as run off…”
& lo, for once the contrarian CenTex weather god took pity on gardeners.
We sure could use more tho…
*looks up hopefully*.
I saw a cotton tail on my way to get the mail yesterday & we smelled a skunk last night. Where they are finding food, I don’t know, but the bunny looked sleek enough.
Bunnies & skunks & coyotes , oh my… & I wonder how long this little bit of quasi country will stay country.
They are already talking about a Central Market for Pflugerville (for those of you readers who don’t have Central Market yet– they are a competitor with Whole Foods). It’s a sure sign of the sooner rather than later gentrification of Pflugerville (soon to be the Pfluger neighborhood of NE Austin, I bet).
I have mixed feelings about this.
It’s unavoidable– the toll road, the cost of gas, the booming population of the CenTex corridor & the fact that Pflugerville is closer to Austin than Round Rock is, all just mean development.
& hey, I can’t bark too loudly since I’ll be at Central Market myself in future picking up whatever I didn’t get from my Greenling order that week.
Also, I still believe the more dense walkable neighborhoods connected to city hubs by public transit we have, the less energy we’ll use & the more undeveloped land outside of urban areas we can keep somewhat un-messed up– which is good for birds, bees & watersheds & so is good for us.
Still there’s something I’ll miss about what’s been preserved ’til now of Pflugerville’s unique character that makes it not Austin & certainly not urban.

Oh & speaking of public transit & human friendly cities, here’s two links that made me smile today:

http://www.carectomy.com/index.php/Train/All-Aboard-the-Train-that-Never-Stops

http://www.carectomy.com/index.php/Urban-Planning/Portlands-Depaving-Day

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