Lemons in February

Yes, as a matter of fact, I did just pick some lemons in February from our tree.

Tomato Crop 2011

I'm rather excited. I got off my butt in January and planted heirloom tomatoes from seed at the appropriate time and we'll now have a pretty good crop ready to be planted in the garden in about 2 weeks.

Look how hairy they are!

A Fine Day for January Gardening

I woke up this morning with a minor hangover which usually means I will not be venturing far from the house. We had leftover spinach & mushroom casserole from last night so that took care of lunch. After lunch I was starting to go a little stir-crazy after having been working at home all week, so I decided it was a fine day to start some gardening projects.

I emptied all the soil from pots on the patio into the wheelbarrow. I removed all pots from the patio, got some trays soaking in water to loosen the dried dirt, and then swept all the leaves and acorns from the patio.

A bit later I ran over to the nearby Natural Gardener to select some heirloom tomato seeds. A generous number of those have been planted and are residing on a bench in a south facing window in the living room.

Black Krim on the left and Cherokee Purple on the right. (I think! Who cares! They're all good.)

I also got some seeds for the kitties: mixed greens and catnip!

After photographing everything, I got a few containers of the Amish Paste and Mortgage Lifters planted, as well as the felines' mixed greens. The only thing left to plant is the catnip.

The cats will get their treat long before I do as the mixed greens should sprout and grow rather quickly.

Productivity is a wonderful thing.

Mid-Week Ketchup

First of all, let's do a Songs From My Head segment since I've had this little ditty stuck in it most of the afternoon.

Whoa! Whole lotta sexy hot sweaty on that stage. No wonder it was stuck in my head for some odd reason!

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Unrelated blog note: I'm taking down my swamp tree blog header for some maintenance. (Link provided for the benefit of the Guest who can't seem to remember from one day to the next -- or one year to the next -- what the previous one looked like!) Replacing it with the first ever collaborative header effort on this blog! A few days ago a friend of mine on Facebook offered to create one. That afternoon, Cody (aka =P) sent me his entry which was like three fabric swatches of different color and texture pieced together. Very calming and serene. Then I put the konagod finishing touches on it!

So much for the minimalist approach!

I chose to flash it up using two points of light to symbolize the two stunningly brilliant minds involved with it! :-)

(Hey, you know there's nothing low-key about me.)

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Can't believe it's Wednesday evening already. txrad has been in high gear trying to get the fall garden ready. Seeds have been planted.

Exciting, huh? (Kinda looks like two grave sites!) Photo provided mainly for the benefit of Sherry P. who asked for one on txrad's Facebook page....as if there would be something to see! Give it 2 or 3 months and you will see Swiss chard and collard greens! YEAAAHHH!

Fall Gardening

Hard to believe it's time to start our fall gardening. It's a dual effort -- txrad will maintain the garden and I'll participate in the harvest and the eating.

Swiss chard and collards are my favorites.

My apologies to all the folks up north who cannot participate in this ritual. Sorry to be a tease!

By The Time You See This, The Tomato Will Be Gone

Because we just ate it.

The first tomato from the garden this season! Small, but flavorful.

YUM!

Fried Avocados and Nature

We decided to try a couple of new things today. First, we went to Torchy's Taco in south Austin for a fried avocado taco which was truly sublimely delicious.

Fried Avocado Taco
Hand battered fresh avocadoes fried and served with vegetarian refried beans, lettuce, pico de gallo and cheese served on a corn tortilla with our poblano ranch sauce.

I will go back but it will require some strategic planning to avoid the crowds. It's well worth the effort though.

It's a small joint and we weren't sure any tables would open up by the time our food was ready so we ordered to go. We did get a table though. $3.50 seems steep for an order of chips and salsa, but both are made fresh on site, and the salsa was splendid. The taco was only $3.25 and coupled with the abundance of chips & salsa, it was ample for my lunch.

After that we went to the nearby Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center which offers free admittance in January, and for good reason since there are no flowers in bloom this time of year.

The organization, we learned, was started by Lady Bird Johnson and actress Helen Hayes in 1982, to protect and preserve North America's natives plants. The gardens, which are quite extensive, feature native plants of Texas, particularly the Texas Hill Country.

Despite the fact that we've lived here over 12 years, and the center is less than seven miles from our house, this was our first visit! Even though I wasn't expecting to see much in January, it was a nice outing. Many of the plants we also have in our yard, but I was also hoping to walk away with some landscaping ideas and inspiration.

There was a nice water feature on the left as we approached the garden courtyard.

There were some cute and friendly turtles in the pond.

The courtyard itself has various garden areas staged to showcase certain categories and themes.

I was amused by the aptly-named Horse Crippler cactus. Ouch!

I liked the spiny hedgehog cactus.

The sotol was stunning.

This agave was quite nice.

There were a number of beautiful streams throughout the grounds.

I didn't know there was a little tower on the grounds. Sheldon had to look for it and I'm glad he did. The climb to the top was short and the views were spectacular.

Looking north toward downtown Austin. The skyline is barely visible.

I had to use my zoom to really get a shot of downtown, or part of it at least. Most of the buildings are obstructed by hills.

A view in another direction. A cold front is passing through today so it was a tad blustery at the top of the tower!

Two hours after leaving home we were back home, but it felt like a little relaxing vacation getaway.

Less Fastly, More Slowly

This might be one of the most beautiful op-ed pieces I've ever read.

Petulant's Red and Green

I'd been emailing back and forth with Petulant for the past week about various and sundry things such as how to take an herbal bath without burning your testicles with eucalyptus oil, and so forth. You know, the usual mantalk. Gardening and farmer's markets came up in the email exchange as well after I was so pleased to learn back in July that the three of us share a passion for gardening. We had quite the comment exchange on that post and most of you remember how that ended, and why. There's no escape from simultaneous humor and drama when dealing with Petulant!

He mentioned that he was going to send some samples of his kitchen labors over to the kona ranch this week. I suggested he address it to txrad who celebrated his 48th birthday yesterday and it would be a nice surprise for him to open something, particularly since it ended up being the only thing he got to open for his big day! (Bad kona!)

Anyhow, txrad went out to fetch the mail and came in with a priority mail package while mumbling something about a town in North Carolina -- obviously having no clue what it could be, or from whom. But his biggest concern was the very wet corner of the box. Uh oh. "I hope this is nothing toxic," he said. I wanted to laugh but I was too stressed out wondering if everything in the box had broken.

I knew what was being shipped and it involved some glass jars! In the end, there was only one very messy mishap involving what had been a jar of very much-anticipated blackberry jelly which would have been mine, all mine.

The red & green salsas survived though! And beautiful they are!

Also included was a bag of dried tomatoes which we will put to use starting this week. Positively mouth-watering!

Never did I imagine 3 1/2 years ago that starting a blog and getting to know bloggers could result in such fun!

Much Better Than Politics

I love Michelle Obama. Say what you will about all the other crap going on in Washington, this is almost too wonderful for words.

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have become a national concern.

[...]

The White House grounds crew and the kitchen staff will do most of the work, but other White House staff members have volunteered.

So have the fifth graders from Bancroft. “There’s nothing really cooler,” Mrs. Obama said, “than coming to the White House and harvesting some of the vegetables and being in the kitchen with Cris and Sam and Bill, and cutting and cooking and actually experiencing the joys of your work.”

For children, she said, food is all about taste, and fresh and local food tastes better.

“A real delicious heirloom tomato is one of the sweetest things that you’ll ever eat,” she said. “And my children know the difference, and that’s how I’ve been able to get them to try different things.

Seriously, how refreshing and uplifting is that after eight years of Bush?

I can't help but notice the absence of watermelons. That would have played right into the hands of the wingnuts who were circulating emails prior to the election of a huge watermelon patch on the White House grounds. If it were me, I'd plant some.

From Which Big Juicy Succulent Heirloom Tomatoes Come

I find it hard not to be utterly fascinated by sprouting seeds which eventually become huge plants bearing food.

It's been about 2 weeks since I planted a bunch of heirloom tomato seeds from packs dated 2005. I had given up hope and this weekend I planted some newer seeds. This morning we had a brief rain shower and suddenly I see a tomato sprouting. This is obviously from the old batch as it's too soon for Saturday's seeds to be sprouting.

It's funny -- this one already has little tomato hairs on the green stalk!

Kona The Gardener

February has been much warmer than usual and it has my spring fever popping out all over. Last weekend I cleared out this area outside the kitchen. There was an enormous rosemary which had engulfed a rather large Mexican oregano, killed that off, and only a few of those cactus pads could be seen peeking out from the rosemary.

A few months ago I removed a large oleander which was against the kitchen window. That was a major chore requiring a chainsaw to fully put it to rest. Now I want to create something nice in this area, and maybe add a place to sit, a bench perhaps, surrounded by flowers.

I needed to get quite a bit of compost to amend the soil so this afternoon we loaded up the Benz and trucked over to Natural Gardener to self-bag some turkey compost. A pickup truck would be ideal for these types of chores but I laughingly refer to the 1996 Mercedes as my "utility truck."

I can get six bags in the trunk and four in the back seat for a grand total of 10 bags. Not bad!

That's about 700 pounds of composted turkey poop, give or take 50 pounds.

The funny thing is, the car actually drives better with 700 pounds of compost in it. But that would be silly to drive around with that load, and not very fuel efficient.

That white bag in the trunk is a 20-pound bag of seed starter mix. I used all but a pound or two to get six different varieties of heirloom tomato seeds planted. If I get decent germination from those seeds (they are 2 or 3 years old) then I may need to plant some of them in this patio bed. We'll have far too many for the garden area.

Each row is a different heirloom, identified by the package at the end of the row.

I am excited and pleased with my productivity. So, how did you spend your Sunday afternoon?

Collard Greens On The Way

I'm such a Southern boy. This warms the cockles of my heart. txrad had planted collards from seed and last week he thinned them out a bit. I'm hoping I can cook up a batch during Thanksgiving weekend but they've got a LOT of growing to do. That's less than 5 weeks away, if you can believe that.

Chili Peppers and Other Penis Envy Celebrations

[WARNING: May not be workplace safe, depending on your workplace.]


txrad went out this afternoon and harvested this for our beans tonight. Cute!

On a related note (sort of), my brother sent me a bunch of pictures today of some celebration. Maybe it's those crazy Japanese having what my brother called a "Cock Celebration." (In the event that Photobucket removes these photos as they did the last time I used the site to store them, I'll replace them in the morning.)

If anyone has any info on this festival, drop a link in comments. I don't normally like parades or anything of the sort, but I might be willing to travel around the globe for this event.

A penis so huge, it takes 20 men to carry it.

Cock to go, with a special dipping sauce?

Do these glasses make my nose look limp?

Teach 'em young in the ways of the world.

Good grief. Maybe this is a festival to raise ... um... awareness.... and combat a declining birth rate.

So we started with a chili pepper and we moved on to penises. I'll leave you with Red Hot Chili Peppers and penises.

Hot August Color

txrad took some photos of flowering plants around the yard at the beginning of August when it was hot as hell -- unlike today when it's damn DAMP and only 73 degrees.

Enjoy his slideshow while I'm banging my brains out at work.

Netroots? Nah, We're Going to a Chicken Seminar

I can't imagine being cramped in a convention center all weekend attending the Netroots Nation conference. Here at the kona ranch we wish them all the best. However, we headed out at 9:00 this morning to attend a seminar at the Natural Gardener nursery on creating a backyard habitat for chickens.

It was very interesting and included tips for stealth chicken operations to help you avoid irking your neighbors, or offending local neighborhood regulations which often frown upon homeowners keeping backyard chickens. (Avoid owning roosters.) Such regulations are ridiculous anyway since I'm not aware of any regulations against keeping dogs which can be among the noisiest animals around. And we learned that dogs love to kill chickens unless they are trained to co-exist. Beasts!

The Natural Gardener is just a few minutes from our house and it's always a relaxing retreat. And I usually leave with some idea for a project I want to do to beautify our own place. Like this round elevated planter made of local stones.

There were probably 150-200 people attending this seminar which surprised me. I really wasn't close enough to see the speaker so I tended to wander around snapping pictures and listening. I heard some fowl activity in some nearby shrubs and found a rooster lurking.

There was also some clever marketing woven into the seminar. Someone builds and sells this chicken "stage coach" for housing your hens and protecting them from predators such as skunks, which apparently have a taste for chicken blood -- preferably after popping off their heads.

The stage coach has a built-in two-seater area where the hens can lay their eggs, and there's a door on the outside for reaching in and stealing the eggs. Clever.

Right behind the rooster's shurbery was a pen for these two goats.

There was also a patch of sunflowers that had a few giants. I was a few feet away from it and standing up, so the center of this shot is at my eye level.

After an hour I was getting tired of the hot morning sun and I went to view the little stream which was created using rainwater from a nearby collection tank.

Even though it was roped off to prevent people from getting close to it, I certainly was wanting to plant my ass on that rock and let the water run over my bare feet.

At the front of the nursery there is a huge fenced-in area housing two donkeys. They are brothers.

There were plenty of butterflies working over all the flowering plants and this one wasn't very skittish when I approached. I got several pictures but this is probably the best one.

I decided I couldn't take the lengthy question and answer portion of the seminar another minute. I had to sit down for a while and these beautiful Adirondack chairs were calling my name. I really would love to have a yellow one and a green one. They were on sale for $280 each but we'd need a truck to get them home. And I should probably find something less expensive.

But they were made of recycled plastic and had the look and feel of wood. They would last forever I'm sure.

Monday Garden Blog

This is currently the view I have from my (still cracked) bedroom window. The Texas sage in full bloom. The bees are loving it.

And it's helping to calm me down... a little bit. I'm ready to get that window replaced though. You can't see the crack because it's in the lower pane.

Hibiscus Heaven

This pretty one will be going there soon. I had to get a photo quickly because I think it's about to close up and tomorrow it'll just be a memory. The red hibiscus in the back has been going wild lately.

This is a far more pleasant way to end the day (I'm not saying I'm done yet!) than a rant about the Supreme Court or misleading poll headlines. But I just can't help myself. If it irritates me to the core, I'm gonna blog about it. Especially if I already have a head start on irritation after a hectic day at work.