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.

Fertilizer and herbicide for St Augustine year long

2nd round of beans this year

Another 4 varieties of bush beans. I planted the seeds in that order today, hopefully will be ready right at the beginning or mid July when the summer start to get intense.

The tests I've made before from another bush bean varieties are here.

Mini carrot harvest.

I'm a total failure when it comes to bulbs(beets, carrots, radish). They never grow the way they suppose to do.

Lettuce 2011

There are lettuces ready to harvest from 45 days to 70 days and here in the city the last 2 days we reached 96 degrees Fahrenheit when the normal temperatures should stay at 80 F at this part of the year. That's why you take your chances and sow in the middle of February a lettuce ready in 70 days, that way you have it ready a little before the heat goes wild. If a frost arrives after the middle of February you just simply cover it from the weather, but overall this 2011 we never saw spring frost after the middle of February.

It was breakfast time and I haven't been eaten vegetables lately, so when I saw my little romaine lettuce ready to harvest, guess what happened?, yes I ate it! with balsamic vinegar and parmesan cheese, good way to start my day.

Dwarf sunflower

Only 16 inches tall. They named it "Junior" at Burpees seeds I suppose because is a small of a kind taking in concideration that other varieties grow from 4 ft to 6tf and some like the mammoth sunflower may even go 9-12 ft.

This dwarf sunflower already got lots of flower buds, but none has not been opened yet.

4 days latter the first bud opened.

First 2011 green beans harvest

In Texas we had been in a very critical drought, some people say is like something never seemed before, but my brother tells me otherwise. The only fact is that there are wild fires in some counties, luckily none close to home. It basically means no rainfall. The last month was well below rainfall average and since I sowed my green bean (60 days ago) seeds only twice rained and it was only one of those times that we had 10 minutes of torrential rain and then nothing more, it was like a message saying: "I know there's not rain here in a long time" and in a desperate measure, there is your water! and then vanished.

So much of a story for the final results, what's that?... The harvest!. You know I realized there's no much of a harvest for green beans when it comes to growing them in squared foot boxes, it's a waste of space, but anyway, the point here is taste and how prolific they are.

"Royal burgundy". Nice big purple bean pods, crispy, but for my taste they are kind of something bland. Not very prolific, round in shape, not very crispy.

Royal burgundy.

"Golden wax improved". The seeds gave me only 50% germination rate, but the prolific rate is good. My brother liked it, it is very crispy-crunchy and lite flavor. They are yellow-green color and round in shape.

Golden wax improved.

"Dragon tongue" is a beautiful pod, bad news is that is flavorless in my opinion because it had an excellent germination rate and is a rabbit producing. I'ts kind of more flat than round in shape, meaty.

Dragon tongue.

The other beans I got were kitchen king and tenderpick, but because their rate germination was from worst to medium and considering the taste, I find it worthless to even mention them!.

Overall I just picked around half of my green beans harvest(1/2 lb), overall I have 1.5 lbs.

For now there's nothing more to say about green beans, until late in the summer when I sow other bean varieties and fall brings the results.

Slime mold

Few days ago I noticed a yellow almost fluorescent substance in a little part of mulch in my garden box, it was fresh and bubbly like fresh glue. At the beginning I tough it was an insect substance like an early stage of larvae, so I went for my sevin insecticide  and sprayed some, but the very next day I went to see it and it was already dried out, solid, like a termite nest material. Finally after research I know it was slime mold.

New sod inside patio

Around 3 weeks ago we added St Augustine sod(Palmetto and Raleigh) to the front and back patio and seems to be holding up well.

Here is the reference brochure to take care of the lawn the whole season.

Leaf miner larvae trail

My green beans leaves always get the leaf miner marks, but only very few.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug

Here is not that cold, well 2 days ago it was I suspect the last cold night at 46F(in the last 3 weeks only twice we retested those lows, you know, feels more like summer at this point) , but today at 89F at 1:00PM the stinky bug called my attention, lucky me I had my camera with me. Globalization brought this little fella to America!. There it was flying and landed on my fence.

Red and Black Mason Wasp

I've found 3 or 4 times this insect in my garden in the last month or so. It's a female the one scouting below.

Bee-ware

Who knows what they liked so much at the bottom of my square ft garden box, it's been 2 days since they've been there.

The martian arrival

Every time I go to the garden in the morning my camera is with me so pictures can be taken when an insect parks in there, that way I can identify them. You know they look pretty, with their colors and all the fuss, but no!, not all of them really are. The monster below is a clear proof of that! and myself grabbed the sevin insecticide just to let him(or her, maybe both in case of an hermaphrodite) know the boundary crossed.

One day latter his relative was here(maybe they send a rescue team when I killed the other one the previous day).

Whatever it is They seem to be here early in the season.

Cucumber flowering

They have big leaves and hairy stems, best of all They are a machine production and only takes around 50 days to start bearing cukes.

Burgundy beans

The flowers and stems are burgundy color as well.

End of March progression

I got 4 basils(2 Genovese and 2 sweet). They seem to be doing well.

4 sweet peppers at 5 or 6 weeks old are already in the permanent box, some others banana peppers and Spaniard peppers are still in foam cups soon to be transplanted.

Beets, lettuces and carrots going strong.

Sugar snap peas vines.

Cucumbers.

Chives.

Green beans.

St Augustine grass brochure.

Mataturf.