Category: gardening

gardening, nature

Rome wasn’t built in a day

suzielinn

And neither was a garden!

One of the comments I hear most often about my garden is, “You must spend a lot of time in your garden!”

I hear that with both inflections…

Good: This is such a beautiful, peaceful retreat you have created, you must spend a lot of time in it!

And

Not So Good: This looks like a lot of work! You must spend a lot of time out here taking care of it!

My general answer is, Well, Yes and Yes but also… Not so much.

Yes, my garden is a lot of work. For the most part, though, it is very enjoyable work. Gardening soothes my soul and calms my mind. Yes, I do spend a lot of time in the garden, both for pleasure (relaxing) and because the weeds aren’t going to pull themselves. But also – not so much, because what visitors to my garden see is… 28 years of work.

Yes, I often spend entire days outside in the garden, especially in late winter and early spring when I am cutting back the previous year’s flower stalks and resetting my vegetables from cool season crops to summer ones. And I did just spend ten hours weeding and mulching the Saturday before a garden club came to tour my gardens. Where many people might see that as work, I see that as (mostly) pleasurable. The few exceptions are junk trees, briars and trumpet vine, but that is where the ritual morning and/or evening garden stroll comes in handy. Newly sprouted cedar elm or oak trees, for example, are easy to spot and pluck up. Give them a season and they are a chore to remove.

I (even? especially?) enjoy the physical aspect of hauling mulch, as it reminds me to be thankful for the ability to do such tasks. It wasn’t that long ago (four years ago, to be exact) that I didn’t know if I would ever be strong enough to haul mulch again. Our bodies are designed for movement and physical work, something that is often overlooked in today’s world.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day and it takes time for a garden to develop, to come together, to mature and evolve and settle in. I can look back at photographs taken of our property 20… 25… 28 years ago and think, I have put a lot of work in to this garden! But what I see is the evolution of both the garden and the gardener. I don’t now remember the back breaking work of removing so much sod, hauling in bricks and rocks and dump truck loads of compost and mulch. This garden wasn’t built in a day. It grew day by day and season by season until I am now approaching 30 years of living and gardening here. A labor of love perhaps, but a sanctuary for this gardener and for the visitors that flutter through.

Photograph taken May 17, 2024, in my Southern Denton County, Texas, garden.

gardening, nature

No room? So soon?

suzielinn

I am afraid it has happened.

I have purchased plants and they need planted.

And. I have… no space for them?

It was bound to happen at some point. But so soon? I have only just begun my garden. (…twenty-eight years ago…)

I am hesitant to share this information around too much. I don’t want word to get out. (…to my Chief Financial Officer…)

It is sad to think that I may never get new plants again. It is sad to think of skipping spring plant sales. It is sad to think of walking right past the pretty plants at the garden center and none following me home.

In all that sadness, I decided I needed to sleep on my conundrum. To give the situation at hand a fresh new look in the morning, in the hopes that perhaps some space might magically open up overnight. (And not via a Vacancy sign popping up on a favorite plant, suddenly stricken overnight by disease or pests!)

And what should happen, but the following morning’s garden stroll revealed… a lightbulb moment…

It isn’t so much that I am “out of space,” rather my garden is full.

Full of winter bulb foliage that needs to die back naturally, in order to feed next year’s blooms.

Full of coneflowers and winecups that I have allowed to reseed and spread and sprawl and ramble about.

Full of daylily foliage, which have been loving our abundant spring rains and growing and doubling in size seemingly overnight.

My garden is equally full of rainlilies and passionvines, both super spreaders in my garden.

Yes. My garden is full.

But the bulb foliage will eventually be cut back and the bulbs will be dug and divided and replanted. The tall bearded irises also desperately need divided and thinned out.

And I really should thin the coneflowers and winecups, but both feed the bees and butterflies that visit my garden. The winecups will finish their bloom cycle soon enough and I will cut back their rambling vines and they will disappear beneath the ground until next spring. The coneflowers may well shrink in numbers, beat down by the summer sun, as is typical in years past.

(Shown below: Texas native winecups, rambling over dwarf Yaupon holly shrub.)

I could stand to pull a few of passionvines that pop up here and there about the garden. But just as I think that, a gulf fritillary butterfly happens by and deposits her eggs and – right before my eyes – nature is complete, right here on my own little piece of Earth that I garden. (Shown in photograph below.)

Am I out of garden space? Perhaps. But for now, I prefer to think that my garden is just bursting out at the seams and jubilantly growing, lush from inches and inches of spring rains.

(Shown below: Coneflower growing outside its flower bed.)

All photographs taken today, May 8th, in my southern Denton County, Texas, garden.

gardening, nature

April Showers And May Flowers

suzielinn

If April showers bring May flowers, I should expect a flood of flowers this month.

I know I have said this before – and I likely will say it a thousand more times – but we gardeners are a fickle lot.

It’s too hot. Or too cold. Too wet. Or much too dry.

I am sure someone somewhere is gardening in utopia, but a garden utopia Texas is not!

Much of the state experienced a record setting freeze in February 2021, which was quickly followed by a summer of record setting heat and drought. The following two summers saw us again experiencing record high temperatures. Much – all? – of the state has been in a prolonged drought, with little rainfall even in what are normally our wetter months of the year. Are gardeners fickle about the weather or are we just more aware of the weather patterns and the seasons? Many times over this past winter, I heard gardeners lament the lack of rain and the possibility of another unseasonably warm and dry spring. I am not so sure, I would counter. We are due for a really wet spring, we haven’t had one in a decade or so. It’s time for the precipitation pendulum to swing from drought to flooding.

Truer words (aka: armchair weather forecasting) may have never before been spoken.

Rain, rain and more rain seems to be our current weather pattern. My new rain gauges, purchased two years ago, are finally getting a workout.

And the flowers.

Oh.My.

The Flowers! The garden on May 1st is truly a flood of flowers!

Giant Imperial Larkspur, shown above, is looking especially stately and regal. I allowed last year’s flowers to reseed at will and the results this year are outstanding.

While the rains have left a few of the early season daylily blossoms looking a bit ragged, this one is beautifully perfect. (Unknown red daylily, shown above.)

“As full of spirit as the month of May, and as gorgeous as the sun in Midsummer,” William Shakespeare

The sunny bright yellow blossoms of Coreopsis, shown below, have been especially welcoming given the many April days of overcast skies and rain-heavy clouds.

“May, more than any other month of the year, wants us to feel most alive,” Fennel Hudson

Most days start with a garden stroll, my rescue mutt Princess Leia running out ahead of me, ensuring that the garden is safe from squirrels and rabbits. While she is dashing rapidly from corner to corner, I – still clad in my pajamas and not quite awake – take a more leisurely pace, stopping to see small details, such as a spider’s handiwork on a poppy bud. (Shown below.)

While some gardeners gravitate toward a formal layout and design, I prefer an informal approach. A cottage garden? A wildflower garden? So many ways to approach gardening or describe one’s garden, no one way necessarily better than the other. To each their own. I take the laid back approach, often letting plants wander about. This Nigella Damascena (Love-in-a-Mist) flower, shown below, has popped up directly in a pathway, but what a lovely flower to have to stop and carefully step around.

Geum canadense (White Avens), shown below, is another plant that has wandered a bit about the garden. My original plant was purchased at the Lady Bird Johnson’s Wildflower Center’s spring plant sale many years ago. It now pops up here and there, never a nuisance, always beckoning me to stop and take a closer look at its tiny blossoms. I have not seen Geum canadense available at garden centers, though it may come up from time to time at nurseries that specialize in Texas natives.

We may not live in a garden utopia, but embracing native plants, as well as older heirloom plants, may just be the way to beat Mother Nature at her game. These are the plants that don’t just survive our extreme weather, but thrive and come back year after year. Calyptocarpus vialis (Horseherb), shown below, is another favorite of mine, as it will grow in both sun and shade and attracts smaller butterflies and pollinators.

“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope,” Emily Bronte

This May, Keep calm and garden on and don’t forget to make a wish for perfect gardening weather this summer!

All photographs taken today, May 1st, 2024, in my Southern Denton County, Texas, garden.

gardening

Ten thousand plants, more or less…

suzielinn

“Real gardeners buy at least ten thousand plants in the course of a lifetime without having the least idea where they will put any of them when they get home.” ~ Unknown

While I have no source for that quote nor research to back it up, I truly feel as if someone has been watching me…

In the horticulture world, there are two types of people. Those that have an eye for landscape design, who plan out new garden beds and carefully calculate how many plants will fit in a given area to have the desired effect. Then there are the gardeners, the ones that plant whatever strikes their fancy, the ones that push the limits, the ones that never colored inside the lines as a kid. I am that gardener.

If I had to make an educated guess about my own plant buying habits, I would say that 93% of my purchases fall in to the category of “I have no idea where I will ever plant this!” I have been known to walk around the garden, searching for a small space to squeeze in one more plant. I have also been known to dig a hole, tuck in a new plant, stand back to admire its new home, then promptly pull up the plant to try again somewhere else. I have even been known to plant something, then decide a week or a month later that I want to plant it somewhere else. A garden is, after all, always a work in progress, eternally evolving. I firmly believe that we should always remain flexible and open to the possibilities. Sometimes things works out. Sometimes they don’t. This happens to be one of those times that things worked out.

Oh, how it worked out!

I love tall bearded irises, though am not a collector, nor even an aficionado. I love them. I plant them. That is about it. Most of my irises are pastel colors, holdovers from my days of collecting pastel antique roses. Then there is this iris. Stunningly dark and bold.

Last spring, I was placing an order with Bluestone Perennials and made the impulse decision to add Clematis Venosa Violacea to my order. See above quote about gardeners buying plants, not knowing where they will plant them. This was one of the few times I knew somewhat where I would actually plant the item.

The irises were past blooming when my order arrived, so which color was where was not front and center in my brain. I planted the clematis on one of the triangular gazebo pieces that needed a little somethingsomething to liven it up.

And liven it up, it did.

The color combination is stunning. The bloom time spot on. It was as if… Maybe I actually planned it? I would love to take credit, but it is really just a very happy coincidence.

And. Yes. I am making a note to plant more clematis, as I am sure I have a few more vertical spaces that need some livening up.

All photographs taken on April 14, 2024, in my southern Denton County, Texas, garden.

bibliophile, gardening, vintage

There’s One In Every Crowd

suzielinn

With apologies to Montgomery Gentry…

If every bar has that one big mouth yelling, “Play some Freebird,” then every town has that one gardener that brings the party in us out… the one that makes everybody else look sane… out as far as you can get…

Garden author Felder Rushing would call them us Maverick Gardeners. Otherwise known as Determined Independent Gardeners. “(They) are not rebellious,” he writes, “they are merely other motivated.” It’s as if Felder took a gander at my garden and handed me a Maverick Gardener membership card, while Montgomery nodded in agreement. “Yup, she makes everybody else look sane.”

“There is no such thing as a weird human being. It’s just that some people require more understanding than others.” ~ Tom Robbins

The orange ranunculus shown above is the inspiration for today’s garden ramble, as it exemplifies “that one in every crowd,” as it was the only brightly colored flower to bloom among the pink dianthus earlier this spring.

Overplanted and over-accessorized are two boxes to be checked in order to belong to the Maverick Gardener club, both of which I surpassed a few plants and several rusty buckets ago. If something will hold potting soil or support a vining plant, the item may well find itself right at home in my melodious garden. Discarded? Past its prime? Seen better days? Even better!

Above, part of an old gazebo has been put to use as a trellis for clematis. All together, the gazebo has six rectangular pieces and four triangular pieces, all scattered about my garden. Step through the garden gate and you will see the piece above, plus two more of the triangular pieces. They rest against the house, trellises for clematis and – soon to be – passion vine. The fourth triangular section (shown below) is straight ahead, against the back fence, a trellis for annual vegetables. If good fences make good neighbors, colorful fences make a fantastic accent piece!

Old buckets are perfect for containing aggressive spreaders, such as mint. Below, variegated pineapple mint grows in an old minnow bucket.

Funnels are equally fun to plant up! Bonus, they have built in drainage!

Old light fixtures are also fun garden pieces!

The counterpart to “If it holds dirt, it’s a container,” is the “If it’s flat, it can be a plant stand!” This old metal spool makes the perfect table for a rusty bucket of mint. The spool also doubles as a hose guide, to keep the garden hoses from dragging across the flower bed. Mints can take heavy water logged soils, so no need to drill a hole in the container. In times of heavy rainfall, I simply tilt the containers of mint on their side for a few days to drain off any excess water.

One rule of over accessorizing the garden: If you don’t know what to do with it, just hang it on a fence!

A full book review of Maverick Gardeners may someday be written. In the meantime. Keep Calm and Garden On. In your own quirky way!

All photographs taken in my southern Denton County, Texas, garden.

gardening, nature

Earth Day 2024

suzielinn

“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” E. B. White

What better day than Earth Day to be on the lookout for the presence of wonder!

The delicate colorations on the underside of an onion chive blossom.

“We cannot protect something we do not love, we cannot love what we do not know, and we cannot know what we do not see. Or hear. Or sense.” ~ Richard Louv, The Nature Principle

The tissue thin petals of a poppy.

“I do not know if it is possible to love the planet or not, but I do know that it is possible to love the places we can see, touch, smell and experience.” David Orr, Earth in Mind

The purple veins on the hyacinth bean’s leaves.

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” Vincent Van Gogh

The snow white of a daffodil, blooming so late in the season.

“To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.” ~ Unknown

The cream colored accents on an amaryllis flower, as if a painter ran their brush across the red.

The contrast between today’s coreopsis blossom and tomorrow’s promise, the still tightly closed bud.

Nature is filled with so many tiny details if only we stopped long enough to take them in. This Earth Day, take time to step outside and take in the natural wonders that surround us.

All photographs taken April 22, 2024, in my southern Denton County, Texas, garden.

gardening

…young and hip, I am not… Or am I?

suzielinn

One moment you are young and hip and the next moment you are taking photographs of your vegetables. Or so the meme goes…

I say you can be young and hip *and* still take photographs of your vegetables!

Not that I am either young or hip. Or am I?

I crossed the threshold to “not young” a few years ago. However, I firmly believe, as the saying goes, that “we don’t stop gardening because we grow old, rather we grow old because we stop gardening.” Gardening keeps us all young at heart, as you are never too old to see the magic contained within a simple seed.

I don’t know that I was ever hip. At least not in the conventional sense. But I do think gardeners are quite hip in their own way. We are all gardening our own little piece of this world, doing our own thing, marching to the beat of our own drum, yet all – in a grander sense – beautifying this wonderful planet. And you can’t get any more hip than that, amiright?

Popeye loved his spinach and kale has had its moment of nutritional fame. Chard, however, is often overlooked by today’s chefs and gardeners but it is also a nutritional powerhouse. Chard, shown in the above photograph, has been loving our unusually cool spring days and abundant rainfall. This patch is nearing two years old and it is still tender and flavorful in salads. Chard grows wonderfully in containers and can take a good amount of shade, so it is a leafy green that anyone can grow, even on a small balcony or patio.

Cut and come again mesclun (lettuce) mix, shown above, is another leafy green that does well in containers and in a semi-shady location. This pot was sown in the fall and has provided a number of cuttings through winter and spring. Alas. It was time for one final harvest, so the container could be planted with summertime crops.

Peas are so beautiful in the garden, from the gorgeous blossoms to the delicate tendrils and the dangling pods. Both the leaves and the pods are edible, making this a two-for-one plant. Peas (shown above and below) are a cool season crop so I know our days together are winding down. I will, however, continue to grow some inside so I can enjoy the leaves as a microgreen.

Only time will tell if I have a fava bean (shown below) harvest this spring or not, as they do not like warmer temperatures. We usually go from winter to extreme summer with barely a pause for moderate spring temperatures, making cool season plantings – such as these fava beans – a gardening gamble. Until then, I will admire the flowers and know that they are providing important nectar for the pollinators.

It is always exciting to see the first tomatoes of the year, after a winter with no homegrown ones. “And we are off to the races!” Which tomato will ripen first? Which tomato will be most productive?

Several of my tomatillos (shown below) are already starting to produce, which makes this homemade salsa loving girl very happy.

Ah. Sunchokes. What to say other than, Yes, they appear do to be a super spreader, as I was warned they could be. Sunchokes, aka Jerusalem artichokes, are a love it or hate it food. I have yet to eat any to know which side I will come down on.

A bit of the backstory to this raised bed, shown below with super spreader sunchokes and rosemary: It is hiding the stump of a very aggressive junk vitex tree that we took down two years ago. I spent an entire Saturday this time last year, sawing and hacking away at the stump, which had refused to die. Then I put the metal ring around the stump, filled it with soil, planted some sunchokes and said, “Battle On! Vitex versus Sunchokes.” Then I spent all summer and fall plucking little bits of the vitex that took my dare and tried to grow. The sunchokes rewarded me with absolutely stunning yellow flowers last year, which the pollinators all loved. This year, no sign of the vitex. But the sunchokes. Oh.My. Do I have sunchokes. So far, the count stands at Vitex 0, Sunchoke 1,001. (Note to self: Move the rosemary before it gets consumed…)

I planted four Baby Cakes blackberries (shown below) two years ago and they have grown so well that I added another three this year. I also have seven vining blackberries, so I am hopeful we will have an abundance of blackberries in another few years.

Bountiful Blue blueberry, shown below, is a new addition to the garden this spring. I am hopeful I can defy our alkaline soils and grow a decent crop of blueberries.

My original gardens were mostly ornamental, with just a few edible crops tucked in here and there. The transition to a mostly food producing garden is now in its third season and things are going very well. I have had zero regrets…even if it means I now take photographs of my vegetables!

Keep Calm and Garden On. And grow some chard. You won’t regret it!

All photographs taken April 12, 2024, in my southern Denton County, Texas, garden.

gardening, vintage

…digging in the dirt…

suzielinn

My garden has always been my sanctuary, the place I retreat to when I need to recharge. When life is simply too much or moving too fast, my garden lifts me up, comforts me. In the words of Wendell Berry, “I come into the peace of wild things” in my garden.

Wandering about my garden the past few days, whispering to the bumblebees, praising the newly sprouted seedlings for pushing through, I am reminded of the quote ~ You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt. This past year has been full of challenges and I have buried a mountain of troubles digging in the dirt.

People often talk about significant events cleaving their lives in half. “Back when we were young and naive” is how I often refer to this time last spring, the time before cancer became part of our normal every day conversations. Our lives have been split in two. By a very kind looking oncologist that bears a remarkable resemblance to Waldo. Last April, we were young and naive. Now we are living on the other side. My husband has bladder cancer, diagnosed last May. Two surgeries and three rounds of treatments so far. We are in this for the long haul. Bladder cancer is extremely recurrent and likes to travel about the body so we are now in a real life game of Whac-A-Mole. My husband has always been the healthy one, the sharp contrast to my chronic health issues. That changed in a blink of an eye. A bit of blood in the urine, nothing too alarming, but enough to warrant additional testing. Yes, you really can bury a mountain of troubles digging in the dirt. My garden has pulled me through this past year.

I have a soft spot in my heart for old wheels. I pick up random lone wheels at estate sales and antique stores, perfect as they are for garden decorations. A circle, with no beginning and no end.

My husband is a hardcore bicyclist. He thinks nothing of working all day and coming home and hopping on his bike and cranking out 60 miles. He loves the adrenaline of the open road, powered only by his own legs and the energy within those two thin wheels. More than a century ago, Dr. K. K. Doty wrote that “A good bicycle, well applied, will cure most ills this flesh is heir to.” While we know a good bicycle won’t cure his bladder cancer, we do know and appreciate that bicycling is – now more than ever – good for his mental and physical health, just as digging in the dirt is good for my mental and physical health.

It has been a long time since I have been able to sit down with my thoughts, my body wanting only to rush, rush, rush and bury more troubles in the dirt and move on away from the events of this past year. “Nothing is so beautiful as spring,” Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote. (Spring, 1877) How true that is! My garden has been rewarding me for all of the troubles I have buried. It is now time to sit and reflect and appreciate the beauty that is unfolding each and every day.

“I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in the garden.” ~ Ruth Stout

The tall bearded irises have been especially beautiful this week. Most of my irises were purchased many years ago from Argyle Acres, an iris farm in nearby Argyle, Texas. The farm has since closed and their inventory sold to another grower, but pieces of it live on in my garden and in many other gardens in this area.

I am sad to say that the names of the irises have long been lost… as has the name of the clematis below. (I don’t tend to record the names of plants, aside from my fruits and vegetables. I would rather… dig in the dirt… than record the names of plants…)

I often talk about my former garden… It was beautiful. And full of pastel roses and pastel flowers and pastel garden art. The above flowers are remnants of my former garden, a reminder of what once was. My new garden is mostly loud. Bold. A riot of colors. Is it true that women become more radical, more bold, once they hit 50? I don’t know, but my garden sure has!

Gaillardia (aka: Blanket flower), native to this region, is a great example of my new color palette. Bold petals in bright gold, transitioning to orange-red as they nears the center. (Shown above)

Vibrant yellow blossoms on yarrow are a lovely contrast to its gray-green foliage. I am hopeful that it will be able to compete with the Malvaviscus arboreus (aka: Turk’s cap). (Shown above)

I am adding a few touches of white to the front gardens, as I like to lay outside under the moon and I love the way white blossoms light up under the moon’s light. I normally shy away from bulbs that do not naturalize in this zone, but am thankful I made an exception for the ranunculus. (Shown above) The bulbs were planted in late winter and have been putting on a show for the past few weeks.

Thank you for taking the time to read my day’s ramblings and, wherever you may be this spring day, I hope that you are able to pause and appreciate the beauty that is spring.

Photographs were taken March 31, 2024, in my southern Denton County, Texas, garden.

gardening

Gardening with enthusiasm and recklessness…

suzielinn

Who would have guessed six years ago, when I started my garden writing journey, that I would one day be quoting Joe Paterno. And Ice Cube. In the same article. And. Truth be told. Not I. Yet here I am.

“We play garden with enthusiasm and recklessness. We aren’t afraid to lose. If we win, great; but win or lose, it is the competition that gives us pleasure.” ~ Joe Paterno

Gardening in Texas in August is much like a high-stakes football game. Are we up for the challenge? Have we prepared well in advance for this moment? Are we focused on the fundamentals? Are we able to quickly adjust our strategies? Can we throw a Hail Mary? And. Yes. “You win some, you lose some. You live, you live to fight another day.” ~ Ice Cube

Life, football and gardening all have metaphors and analogies galore. You win some, you lose some – perhaps the most overused phrase in the English language – easily applies to life and any sporting endeavor. In gardening, it is often overlooked as it can take weeks, months and sometimes even a few years to make sense of a win or a loss. Why is one year better for tomatoes and not for cucumbers? Is the pomegranate you nursed through two freakishly hot summers really a mislabeled ornamental variety? To paraphrase Ice Cube, “If you garden, you garden to fight another day.” Or perhaps it is, “If you live, you live to garden another day.” Either way, you roll with the punches, you take what life gives you and make lemonade from life’s lemons. And. Yes. That means gardening when the thermometer tops out at 106 degrees for days weeks on end.

You win some, you lose some. And sometimes something eats your watermelon. (Shown below.) I am not sure whether it was squirrel, rat or rabbit that initially got the watermelon, but the pillbugs are finishing off the job.

Are we up to this challenge, gardening in a Texas summer? More importantly, Are our gardens up to this challenge? Better yet, how can we get our gardens up to the challenge? By feeding the soil, not the plants. A healthy soil is first and foremost the most important part of gardening. Healthy soil should be teeming with life, visible to the naked eye (earthworms) and invisible to the naked eye (bacteria). Watering long and deep and infrequent promotes healthy, extensive root development, over the shallow roots which form when plants are watered often for short periods of time. Mulch, mulch, mulch, but please. No mulch up against the trunks of trees or shrubs. The plant needs space to breath. We mulch the ground, not the plant.

Have we prepared well in advance for this moment? Some people are fair weather gardeners, enjoying the cooler temperatures and ample rainfalls that spring and fall supplies. Still others may flip the seasons – If northern climate gardeners can take off the cold of winter, then southern gardeners can take off the heat of summer! There is nothing wrong with being a two or a three season gardener. Four season gardeners – such as myself – those of us that garden with enthusiasm and recklessness the entire year – prepare well in advance for today’s high temperatures, yet somehow try to balance preparing for the upcoming seasons. We are nursing tomatoes through the summer, in anticipation of a nice fall harvest, while starting our winter collard greens and cabbages. There is a learning curve to figuring out what to start when and how to know when to pull the plug on something to make room for another crop. Thankfully, two of my favorite local garden centers have extensive vegetable planting guides on their websites (links below) and I keep multiple copies printed off – on my gardening clipboard and in my gardening binder and folded up with my seed inventory. Seed packets will say how many days to harvest and knowing how to calculate that off the average first or last freeze dates is a critical skill for all vegetable gardeners.

You win some, you lose some. Astia zucchini (shown below) has been a fabulous producer all season long, with both the plant and the harvest being of manageable size.

Are we focused on the fundamentals? Yes, gardeners are easily seduced by the pretty pictures in a seed catalog or by the racks of seeds on display at the nursery. It is always fun to push the envelope, to try to grow something others in our region aren’t growing. But at the end of the day, what we can harvest – and eat – is what nourishes our soul and our body. Leave room in the garden to play with new varieties, but focus on the fundamentals, the tried and true varieties. Yellow pear tomatoes are one I have grown for more than twenty years because I know they will always produce well, even in higher temperatures. That is my nod toward the fundamentals. The tropical papayas and guavas, which spend their winters nicely tucked away inside our home, are my enthusiasm and recklessness.

Are we able to quickly adjust our strategies? That may mean pulling a plant that just isn’t producing. Or – in my case this past week – pulling a plant that was overly vigorous and overly productive. I mean: Just how many zucchinis is too many?! It was time to break up and move on, for fall gardening is just around the corner. Adjusting our strategies may mean putting up shade cloth to protect tender young plants or moving a container plant to a shadier location. It may also mean getting up and out in to the garden with the sunrise, to get a few hours of gardening in before the sun is too high, or watering in the evening so the water can seep in slowly and not evaporate.

You win some, you lose some. Black Beauty zucchini proved a bit too aggressive in my garden, having swallowed up one pathway and one twenty pound dog, while tossing out meme worthy harvests. I was away from the garden for two days last week and needed the wheelbarrow to move its harvest. Just one Black Beauty produced two batches of zucchini bread and one vegetarian enchilada casserole. It was time to go.

Ah. The Hail Mary. Gardeners are great at this analogy, and fall tomatoes may be the perfect example of the Hail Mary. We plant them in the hottest, driest days of summer and nurse them along for weeks on end, in desperation for just a few more homegrown tomatoes before the frost is on the pumpkin. Growing peas in North Texas may be a close second to the fall tomato. How late is too late to start? When is it too early? For such a durable seed, they are a fickle little thing and one must consult Mother Nature for the inside scoop. If anyone has this figured out already, please let this gardener know. Which brings me nicely back to Joe, for it is the competition that give gardeners pleasure, knowing that we did it. We outsmarted the squash vine borers! We had homegrown tomatoes at Christmas! We survived the summer of 2023! Okay, it may be a bit too early to celebrate that one… But chins up. February is just around the corner.

“We play garden with enthusiasm and recklessness. We aren’t afraid to lose. If we win, great; but win or lose, it is the competition that gives us pleasure.” ~ Joe Paterno

Two vegetable planting guides for North Texas:

Redenta’s Garden Shop

North Haven Gardens

gardening

The first week of August is motionless and hot

suzielinn

It’s the second day of August and this Texas gardener feels akin to a cicada molt clinging to a dried up echinacea blossom. Need proof? I snapped this selfie, shown below, yesterday morning while wandering about my garden.

“August is one of the hottest months of the northern year, so hold your breath and see that the fan is in order. It is also one of the longest months, and sometimes it seems even longer.” ~ Hal Borland

Texas – and most of the south – baked in a heatwave back in 2000. I often talk about that summer, as I worked at an independent organic garden center way back then and that summer is seared in to my cells and in to my memory. I worked that September day in 2000 when the thermometer hit 111 degrees in DFW and – while my memory fails me much too often these days – I still can remember that feeling of… Will this heat never break?

Last summer felt exactly like 2000. Now this summer feels too much like 2000…and 2022… But the garden carries me through and I find myself fluttering about the garden, though not as a butterfly would seeking nectar, more as a weary old soul seeking a bit of shade here and a hope for tomorrow there, the promise that each new day brings, signs that we are all together part of this amazing journey called Life. When the world feels much too heavy, as it has of late, I seek solitude and grace and comfort in my plants.

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” I often reference Audrey Hepburn’s famous quote, but the arrival last week of a fresh supply of vegetable seeds – some for late summer harvests and some for winter – brought more joy than any diamond necklace ever could. To look at a seed and see its potential, to know that the simple act of poking it in the soil can bring forth nurturing, healing food. That is to believe in tomorrow.

While I have been a passionate (obsessive?) gardener for nearly three decades, this is my first season growing tomato plants from seed. The former gardener in me always wanted one or two of various tomato varieties, so it seemed more practical to buy a half dozen transplants than to buy multiple packs of seed. Late last summer, I purchased a grab bag of assorted vegetable seeds, some of which were simply labeled as a generic sounding “large cherry tomato.” Not one to pass up a new learning experience, I decided to try my green thumb – finally – at growing tomatoes from seed. This may have unleashed a new gardening passion, for harvesting tomatoes off of a plant that one grew from seed is such an incredible feeling. The larger takeaway from growing tomatoes from seed? Not only that you can believe in tomorrow, but also believe in next month and the month after and maybe, just maybe, can pull through this season of life, no matter how many lemons life has lobbed your way.

Tithonia, aka Mexican sunflower, is an annual that I grew for a summer or two back in my early days of gardening, then stopped when I fell hard for pastel colored roses. I am so thankful that I have rediscovered them, for they are truly a bright spot in the August garden, blooming a color equally matched by the heat of the summer sun.

Zinnias are another flower that I stopped growing, though I don’t quite know why. Maybe simply because I didn’t have room as my rose collection grew. Maybe the blessing behind losing my roses was that it has allowed me space to explore more of the botanical world and rediscover lost loves. I am not sure who enjoys the zinnias more right now – me, the bumblebees or the butterflies? We are all lured closer by their cheery blossoms.

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot.” ~ Natalie Babbitt

Tuck Everlasting was a favorite book when my son was younger and how perfectly the author captures this first week of August, motionless and hot. This volunteer sunflower, more than eight feet tall, seems to hang, too, at the very top of summer, motionless and hot. A week ago, this was the local hangout for all the cool bees in town. Alas. Now it is fading away into the cloudless August sky.

“August is just another thirty-one days of concentrated summer, but it certainly gets one in condition to appreciate fall when it comes.” ~ Hal Borland

I am drawn to recording the garden at the top of each month, a time to wander the garden and pause and appreciate the different aspects of the garden – sometimes it is a flower, sometimes greenery, sometimes just a pathway or a special vignette. This yellow primrose has been blooming since early May and looks especially lovely with the clear blue chicory flowers. Double Alas. I didn’t manage to record the variety when it was planted during last year’s major garden renovation. Also, I am 99.99% certain it is a hybridized variety as it does not seem to be a good source of pollen. The bees are all over neighboring plants and seldom take even a passing glance at the primrose. Still, it is delightful in the garden and I am thankful for the sunny splash of color.

Happy August and thank you for dropping by. Think cooling fall thoughts for soon – though not soon enough – us gardeners will be lamenting the cold of winter.

All photographs in this post were taken Tuesday, August 1, 2023, in my zone 8a, Southern Denton County, Texas, garden.