The End Of a Garden

My tomatoes are finished so I have pulled them from the garden and added them to the new compost pile.  In Louisiana you have two growing seasons for tomatoes so I added some old dry milk product to work into the soil and will start getting the spot ready.  I am planning on moving the garden spot out to make the bed bigger and grow more but I am happy as I got more tomatoes this year then the last two years. 
So the end of a garden is just the beginning.  Here is a video from Self Sufficient Me.  It is long but you get a feel how to prepare a bed with mulching and what weeds to pull what you can pull and leave in to mulch.  He is going to use a wood mulch the top soil.
Now mine is going to be planted again soon and has a shorter winter over so I will be using some mulch material that will break down fast,

Pollinator Week

http://pollinator.org/pollinatorweek/     

National pollinator week is coming up and I had this link sent to me by the by the USDA.  There are lot of things we can do to help bees out one is set out a tiny bit of water on a flat plate as bees do get and during the hot season can not find a water source.  If you live in an apartment try setting out some planted flowers and you can hang a humming bird feeder to feed bees as well.

Growing Some Watermelon

Growing some watermelon this year taking when to plant from my https://farmersalmanac.com. 
I get reminders of when and what to plant and find these useful living here in the south.  I grew up in the northwest corner of the states and gardening was different. 
I was so used to gardening in that time zone that I could not garden here.  I kept starting my plants when they do and then my plants burnt up because it became to hot before they could mature.  So if recommend looking into this if you are having gardening concerns it maybe just a matter of knowing when to plant.
The watermelon in the picture needs to have the hill built back up as I have been having a lot of rain the last two days.  This one will grow a melon of 45 lbs and I am excited to see how I do with the melons this year. 

This piece also comes from http://www.almanac.com

Climbing Pease Rose

I received this quote from the www.almanac.com   And the quote is true as the peace rose I have climbing on the side of my house has buds today for the first time in two years.

The buds are tiny at this point but I am excited and cannot wait for the bloom.  Here is a link to my wordpress blog for what I wrote about the birth of the bush peace rose Life By The Bayou  but the climbing peace rose is a tea rose and I found a link to buy one if you would like.  https://www.directgardening.com.  When my blooms open I  will share a photo and an article of what I use to grow them. 

My Neighbor Has Hemlock

There has been a white flowering bush type plant in my neighbor's yard and I had thought it was Queen's Lace so I was not concerned but today Country Magazine put out and article about Hemlock on the web and I went outside to take a look Queen's Lace and well I don't think it is anymore.

Here is the link to the article if you would like to read it: http://www.countryliving.com .  I am also going to include a list of how to identify the plant if you do not wish to read the article.  The Hemlock is poisonous to you and your pets so please take a look.

Black Mission Fig

On Earth Day we attended a educational event at the Alexandria Zoo  and among the plants we got there were a black mission fig and two longleaf fir trees. 
I have wished I would have written down what she said about our tree but I believe she said ours was
developed into bush type instead of a tree which would be nice as these trees can grow from 10ft to 30ft.  Coming from Asia originally these trees have made it to several European countries and Spain before coming through the missionaries to California.  The black fig is extremely popular for it sweetest and fairly easy to grow fruit. 

Here is a photo of the fig we got on Earth Day.  It is starting to send two shoots up from the roots along the base of the plant which reinforces my belief that she told me it was a bush type fig.  ❤

http://www.gardenguides.com gives some good information on planting and growing bush or tree figs as the growing is the same just the size of plant is different. 

This should be what our little bush fig should look like and I am excited as you can see it is a compact heavily leaved and very pretty. 

Here is some food value facts about figs:

These come from http://www.nutrition-and-you.com check this link out to get the rest of the article.

Tomato

Hanging heavy and red

I peek through branches of green

hoping to be overlooked

by the eyes of the bird

today maybe the day

I am plucked from

my humble stem

but until then

it is the sun I'll

bath in

Pomegranate

Discovered that my pomegranate tree is producing one pomegranate.  Very exciting for me and my family as it is a favorite fruit for us all.  Mine trees are in pots They grow well in pots but it does makes it harder as the roots are mainly on the surface and need to be watered more often then most trees.  They prefer to be moist and not heavily watered.

According to the Wikipedia the pomegranate is good for cooking, juice and baking.  Here is a small piece of the article by Wikipedia
The pomegranate originated in the region of modern-day Iran, and has been cultivated since ancient times throughout the Mediterranean region and northern India.^[3] It was introduced into Spanish America in the late 16th century and California, by Spanish settlers, in 1769.^[3]
Today, it is widely cultivated throughout the Middle East and Caucasus region, north and tropical Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, the drier parts of southeast Asia, and parts of the Mediterranean Basin.^[3] It is also cultivated in parts of Arizona and California.^[4] In recent years, it has become more common in the commercial markets of Europe and the Western Hemisphere

For more of this article go to Wikipedia . One thing I found out on my own is that there are male and female trees.  So you need two trees to pollinate them.

Violets in a Topsy Turvey

I placed some violets into a topsy turvy,  www.topsyturvy.com.  We got this free from the Cyber Security event at the park this spring and we put some hot peppers that were growing in the front garden.  The plants are still growing upward so waiting for the peppers to weight the plants down
so that they will seem to be upside down. 
I put the violets in to fill the spots were the peppers failed to do well and to add some color.  It is getting to hot here for them so I am hoping that being in the air will help them last longer.
The topsy turvy seems to dry out quickly which will be good for the peppers as they prefer to dry some between waterings.  Right now I am wondering how violets in a topsy turvey  will do. Maybe I can keep them through the summer?

Farmer's Helpers

Kaz March 22, 2017 Be creative

Little Farmer’s Helpers

Little farmers helper
humming by
dancing with the breeze
with carefree ease
winging a form of fun
over warmed roof tops
being your day of
work is done
dying daily unaware
of harmful chemicals
here and there
little farmer’s helpers
so vital you see
can’t produce the food
without some of these      

Work such as it is belongs to Karen Smith copy right 3/21/2017

How Well Does My Garden Grow?

When I bought my Mobile home a couple of years ago I decided to put a small garden for tomatoes and hopefully other vegetables in the front year.  In the meantime I decided to plant some other plants too and get some shade in the front of the home.  We get so hot in the summer and fall and the front of the house is very hot.

So I began planting.  The other day I took a look at my front garden and realized how full it was.  Every thing has grown so much this year that I saw that I was going to have to move my vegetable plants to somewhere else before I plant next,

The Peace Roses

I am trying to grow a climbing peace rose in my garden.  The main plant has died years ago but before it died a branch had broken off and I planted it.  I was so glad I did as it has been growing steadily every year.  The rose got it name in 1944 one month after the liberation of France from the Pacific Rose Society as a request from it’s developer Papa Meilland.  During the war he had sent cuttings to several countries and only Italy, Germany, and the United States received the cuttings.  The Italian gardener were so impressed by the rose that they called it Giola meaning joy and the German gardeners called it Gloria Dei or the Glory of God.  The Americans like peace and chose it in honor of the rose developer.
Papa Meilland produced the rose from a mix between a rose named in the honor of his mother and another rose.   Madame A. Meilland is one of the parents to the peace rose.

I have not seen my rose bloom yet as the branch though mature enough to plant was a small one. Roses are great for cuttings and do best with a year old branch.  My daughter and I have grown many by cuttings.
Anyway, here is a shot if it in my garden along with some of the raspberries and what I think is a muskadine grape.

Flies? Are You Serious!

I wrote a few days ago about pollinating beetles and I mention that flies can and are also important to pollination.  I had never heard of this and well hate seeing flies even outside, but just in the short web search I have done I have found lots of important information  to prove that they are important to crops.  I copied a little expert from The Diptera Site:
Larger flies such as carrion and dung flies visit and pollinate pawpaw (Asimina triloba). Many Rosaceous flowers in the northern hemisphere are visited and at least partly pollinated by flower flies (Syrphidae): Apple (Malus domestica) and Pear (Pyrus communis) trees, strawberries (Fragaria vesca, F. x ananassa), Prunus species (cherries, plums, apricot and peach), Sorbus species (e.g. Rowanberry) and most of the Rubus-species (Raspberry, Blackberry, Cloudberry etc.) as well as the wild rose Rosa canina.
I found this interesting as well who would think and apple tree would be pollinated by a fly?   The main focus on pollinating is put onto bees which I would think would be logical because they provide another form of food production in the way of honey but to fully understand the nature of pollination I would think it would be important to consider a whole eco system of pollinators.
Anyway, some of the flies look a little like bees so that as they do their work they are less likely to be bothered by predators.  One example of this is the Hover Fly.
So now besides the beetles I have to learn to see the flies in the garden under a new light and hold back on the fly swatter. http://diptera.myspecies.info/diptera/content/flies-%E2%80%93pollinators-two-wings  Check out this site for more information or use the search term pollinating flies.

The Gardener

Henry bent to his pruning the hat flying from his head
roses longs to be free bees humming all around
he laughed as the his dog caught the hat
and felt the breeze sing by
life is good in the garden today, rabbits hopping along the edge
and deer peeking from the distance.
the corn sends a voice of concern, I am in trouble tonight
it seems to say time for the protective net
Henry straighten his aching knees, doing what he loved
headed for the shed of blue he kept not far
thoughts of the stories of fairies he heard as a kid
they hide in the tulips his mama said
the tulips are gone now bloomed early and left
try as hard as he could he still has not seen them
Henry sent a stick sailing and the dog raced by
I must replace the edging by the begonias I see

My first attempt at an Idyll by Karen Sue Smith 4/13/2017