Moving to tumblr

Well, having a food blog in blogger is enough, long ago I had an account with tumblr, but stopped writing in it when dinosaurs went extinct!, the only bad thing about tumblr is importing from another platform; it's simply not permitted, that lets me only one option, stop writing here.

Now this blog will remain as a reference when I write my new post at tumblr. Click the image to be redirected to my new blog.

Summer cicada buzzing equals cicada killers

The cicadas are buzzing and that reminded me of a big!, huge wasp! I saw last year at this time when the cicadas began to buzz, soon after I began seeing some of the wasps, they were so scary they made me do my research and I found out the answer...Cicada killers!.. Soon I'll be seeing the wasps I guess.

Cicadas never represented a problem to my garden(pest), so I don't count them as such, although on a big scale agriculture you may hear another story. You know if she was going to be a problem she certainly will not be posing as a star at my blog, more certain she would have been under the sole of my shoe. So let it be clear cicada, you don't mess with my crop and stay out of my shoe.

She thinks she is funny.

Fat belly.

UFO.

Hey if I get enough insects I can open my own ice cream enterprise too!.

Cicada from Sunflare on Vimeo.

What pots for what flowers

When you buy seeds on the back of the packet is written the size a plant will reach at maturity, but I was skeptical until I saw it with my own eyes. Now I know and the size of the plants for the right pot are as follow.

8 to 12 inches plants in pots 6 inches size.
12 to 18 inches plants in pots 8 inches size.

The only problem with 6 inches size pots is that you need to water daily in very hot weather(in texas reaching 107 F) and it may become tedious. That's why using smaller size pots I consider practically nuts!.

Zinnia Zahara rose in 6 inches pot.

You can use rectangular pots, circulars, whatever shape you want, especially if you want to give an accent to a garden area

Sunflowers

Beautiful big strong flowers although I like to compare them with butterflies because the plant leaves are not that handsome... The downside? once the flowers blossom it takes only 2 weeks for them to fade and never blossom again, in that sense you get stuck with an ugly stick and not so pretty plant leaves. Another negative?, they take more than 2 months to start flowering, once they do you get 2 weeks of nice flowers, then they turn brown(dying). You see the most part part of their lives are like caterpillars, at the very end is just glorious. The flower at the top of the plant is the biggest one, the one flowering first and the first to die, once that happens you know the rest will follow, that's the sunflower life.

Citrus sunflower.

Citrus sunflower.

Hopefully my other sunflowers will grow this summer and I'll post in here once they flower.

Moonflower and Cypress Vines

The moonflower and cypress vines did great!. They engulfed the whole trellis, the leaves are palm hand size(the biggest ones) and the flowers only last a couple of days and then die, but there are always new ones forming everytime. Once they get strong and of good size they become unstoppable. The one below is only 3 months and 4 more months of heat is waiting for them.

Moonflower.

Moonflower.

Sowing 5 sunflower varieties

Right now only one kind of sunflower is flowering(a citrus sunflower), another one died because of a fungus, but given that the next 5 months are practically frost free it makes sense to sow all my other sunflowers seeds types right now, that way I will see them growing and take a peek at their looks, so next year I'll know exactly which, how many and where to sow them. Basically this year is all about trial and error(and gaining practice and experience).

2 seeds of each.(Florenza, Chianti, Apricot twist, Lemon aura and Starbust aura.

Watermelons and cantaloupes production

The real heat is just here, the next 3 months are the hottest of all year and my charm with green beans ran out of luck, it's simply too hot to even try it, green beans are to be sowed early in the spring for a late spring or very early summer harvest and again sow in the late summer for a fall harvest. The tomatoes are holding, but some kind of blight showed up in them, I got lots of cherry and yellow pear tomatoes already, although tomatoes as I saw in the season are better to sow in regular soil and not in boxes as in my square ft garden, next year I'll sow them in the regular garden, my neighbor did that and he got lots of romas and beefsteaks. I just got one big boy tomato fruit and it was very small, I guess that happens when you try to grow them in containers.

Today inspecting my carolina cross watermelon, fordhook watermelon and my ambrosia cantaloupe I realized some flowers pollinated and got pregnant which in turn means little fruits are starting to grow!. Hopefully all of them will develop in big fruits so they become food of this blog writer. Yum!.

Carolina cross watermelon vine.

Carolina cross fruit developing.

Ambrosia cantaloupe vine.

Ambrosia cantaloupe fruit.