Update Coming Soon

I haven't updated the Glynn's Farm blog for a while due to poor health and the fact that not much has happened on the "farm" during the winter months. Lots of activity however now that spring has sprung in East Texas. I'll have some new pics of the garden and spring flowers too as soon as I work through some problems with getting them downloaded from the camera.

Thanks for stopping by.

Morning Glories: The Saga Continues

Well, of all things. I finally got a couple of morning glory blooms! I think what's happened is that as the sun gets higher every day, the morning glories get more morning sun, prompting a bloom or two. See the pictures below, which I made on July 24. There is a problem (which I've had consistently when planing seeds) What comes up are not what they were supposed to be. In this case they're purple and the seed package said they'd be red. Read on after the pictures for the complete story of the "Red" morning glories.




































I planted what was supposed to be red morning glory seeds in early May and because I've had bad luck with seeds for a time, I got impatient when they didn't come up in a timely fashion, but the seedlings finally emerged about May 30. This is what they looked like by June 2. The seed package said to thin them to 1 foot apart, but I decided to see how they did without thinning.

By June 10 they were well on their way to the top of the railing, still no blooms however.




By June 19, they had grown to the top of the deck railing. Once they got up to the deck, I reused some plastic netting for the morning glories to run on that I had previously bought for black-eyed peas to run on, but turned out not to be heavy enough for the peas. You can see it in the picture below





Below is a view of the vines from inside of the deck and they have started to twine around a rook for a hanging basket.








And finally the first ones to reach for the sky! I've pruned two others that reached the top of the deck rail, but I let these grow to see what they would do and they began to fork in abundance. No flower buds were apparent on any of the vines yet.














Well, the morning glories reached the top of the deck railing and twisted around each other. See below. Unfortunately I've got beau coups vine, which would be OK if I had planted a sweet potato, but not so great for morning glories. I did a bit of Googling on the web and I think I found out what's wrong. Although they get lots of sunshine in the afternoon, they're in the shade in the morning and they have to have morning sun to bloom; otherwise I guess they'd be called Afternoon Glories--sort of like four o'clocks, they are picky about the time of day to bloom. I also found out that for my location on the deck, I should have planted moon flowers, which bloom in the afternoon and sometimes all night. I had some when I lived in New Orleans and they did put on quite a display and got lots of oohs and aahs from the night people, I lived a block outside the French Quarter and had lots of night-people passersby; usually noisy and drunk but they did enjoy the moon flowers.














I guess I'll leave the morning glory vines for the rest of the summer, but next year I'll plant yellow jasmine to grow on the deck railing--and probably moon flowers too because they'll outgrow the jasmine--and I'll be on the lookout for a better place to plant morning gloris.

The Farm House on the 4th of July

The "farm house" on the 4th of July. Click on the image to enlarge it.
















Here's a special patriotic pot of red (verbena) white (verbena) and blue (salvia.) Again, click on the image to see the blue.

Volunteers

My mother called plants that came up on their own without being planted "volunteers." Maybe it's a widespread usage, but I've not heard it anywhere but from my mother. She used to tell a story about an unmarried, dim-witted woman who got pregnant. Someone asked her who the father was, and she said she didn't know, it just volunteered. Hmmm. Anyway, I've had some interesting volunteers this year. Click on any of the images to get an enlarged view.

First all the zinnias in the birdbath bed volunteered from last year's plants. When I dead-headed the blossoms, I threw them into the bed, and this spring, guess what. I had beau coups zinnias that came up on their own and I had to thin them out ruthlessly--and they were pretty true to those I planted last year, plus a few I didn't remember, like a pure white one that I'm going to keep seed from. Here's this year's zinnias in the birdbath bed.

















In spite of the urban legend that you can't transplant zinnias, I even transplanted some of my volunteers to pots. Here's a picture of a pot of zinnias that share the space with a rooted coleus.





























And on the right is another pot of transplanted volunteer zinnias sharing a pot with a volunteer ilex of some unknown variety that volunteered in the pot two years ago.












In addition, I've had a few others:

Last year I had red salvia in two pots that I put pink geraniums in this year. I'm pretty "cheap" by nature, so I reused the dirt in the pots. Guess what, I had red salvia come up in both pots to compete with the geraniums. I didn't think the red looked good with the pink, so after I dead-headed the geraniums , I let the salvia bloom. Then when the geraniums started to bloom again, I dead-headed the salvia. Pesto!! double duty pots that are alernately red and pink.

Here on the right are the pots in their "pink Phase."



























Although not strictly a "volunteer" I have a new spout coming up from my yucca. Here 'tis.





















And also, not strictly a volunteer, but a surprise anyway, I have a caladium coming up in a hanging basket of verbena. In early spring (April) I planted several caladium tubers in pots, but I either planted them too deep or upside down, a common mistake I make. Telling top from bottom of a caladium tuber for me is like telling the sex of baby chicks--I'm at sea. Anyway, I fished most of the caladiums out of the pots and planted them in the ground in front of some coleus I rooted from a mother plant I got last year and wintered over. It's a wonderful plant by the way, grows like wild fire, roots like the dickens, and never puts up those annoying coleus "flowers." Here's the mother coleus.




















Here's the bed with the caladium and rooted coleus.



















And here is a picture of the caladium in the verbena pot:
























And finally, here's a pine seedling in it's second year that volunteered in the yucca pot. I transplanted it this year to a pot of its own, which it's sharing temporarily with white and red verbena and a kalanchoe I'm rooting. My goodness how I love to root stuff! Such power!

Extending the Deck

I reassembled a deck that I had built for my travel trailer "Chez Sugar" (see left below.) and it was higher than the back door of the house in San Augustine, so you had to go out the back door and mount four steps to get on the deck. I had planned from the beginning to extend the deck in front of the back door at the same level as the back door, one step lower than the deck. On the right below is how it looked when I attached it to the house.


















On the left below is a close-up of the end of the deck where the extension will go.
















The two pictures below are what the deck extension looked like after the first day's work.


















The last three pictures are after the second day of work on the extension. It is finished except for some "prettying up" and finishing trim. I also need to put up hand rails for both sets of steps. The dimensions of the original deck were 6'x12'. The extension is 4'x6', so now it's 16'x6' on two levels. The extension doesn't add much "usable" space, but it does provide some space for a few more containers, particularly for kitchen spices, oregano, thyme, basil, etc., near the back door and it's more convenient to pluck green peppers and egg plant from the back-door bed. It's also more convenient to get to the deck from the back door.


































The next deck project is to build a pagoda using a modification of a plan at the Lowes.com site.

More Pictures

Some Pictures of the Farm

Potato Plants in May:












Squash Plants in May

















Corn in May

What's Been Happening in May 2007

May was a busy month at the farm and it’s time to play catch-up with what’s been happening. I’ve about laid the yard to rest, as far as new planting is concerned, until the end of August when it will be time to make decisions about what to plant in a fall garden.

This spring’s garden was not an overwhelming success.
Roma Green beans: a real success although I only got around to gathering the two rows once, I got enough to can 24 ½ pints and they are delicious.
Corn: the corn that I’ve tried has been hard even when the ears were small and immature. It may have been that the seed was “field corn.” If I plant corn again next spring, I’ll order some seed that is supposed to be “sweet” otherwise, I can do better buying frozen ears at the grocery store.
Carrots: The two types of carrots (yellow and a kind of stubby orange) were bitter, tough, and fibrous. I’m trying to cook one more mess and it that doesn’t change, I’m ripping them all out.
Squash: The squash–well another bad choice of seed. I tried some that I thought might me like the calabash (Indian) squash I like so much when I can find it in the grocery store, but the two types I planted were hard-shelled. I tried cooking them like acorn squash, but the meaty walls were skimpy and, again, it was fibrous and not nearly as tasty as acorn or butternut squash. I bought a calabash at WalMart and let it dry out. I’m planning to save the seed and try them; once pretty soon in early summer, again in late summer (for fall) and again in the spring. If that doesn’t work, it’s back to yellow crookneck and zucchini for me.
Turnips: Bah! another disappointment; partly because (on Carter’s advice) I didn’t get them thinned and they matured too late, which may have made them tough and fibrous. The greens are ok now, but the turnips are a failure. I’ll try planting them again for a fall garden but I’ll be backing up the seed from the feed store here in SA with some “store bought” ones.
Mustard: Another case of not thinning early enough, and probably not planing early enough–like last fall. I’ll try planting them again for a fall garden.
Potatoes: the four rows of potatoes did well and I had a nice harvest. I’m trying to store them in the cellar under the kitchen. I made some potato soup to can, but I messed it up by using the bitter carrots from the garden in it, so I’m throwing it out and starting over.
Onions: The sets I got in Center and planted last fall (red and white) only did fairly well. They were slow to mature and not as flavorful as the sets I got here in San Augustine that I planted in the spring. The latter will be my choice next year–and this fall if the seed store here has them for fall planting. I’ll be pulling them all later, when I have sunshine all day so they can lie in the sun all day and develop skins for storing.
Tomatoes: The jury is out. The vines are fine and have set some green tomatoes, but they require lots of staking.
Green Peppers: Both the ones in the garden (red and yellow there actually, not green) and in the back door flower bed appear to be producing.
Cayenne Peppers: From plants I got at Wal Mart. They're doing well; lots of peppers, although I don’t know what I’ll do with them. Maybe I’ll put some in chow chow (see below.)
Okra: Still too early to tell. I planted them in May (seed I got from “seeds of India”) and they’re about 1 foot high–but looking good.
Green Peas: another bust. I got very few peas and they didn’t taste very good. I had the same luck with black-eyed peas last year, so I don’t think peas are a good choice for Glynn’s Farm.
Cabbage: I set out plants from Center in the late fall; both purple and green. They did fairly well, produced lots of heads, but some either burst or something ate the tops out of them. I’m keeping a couple in reserve now to use for chow chow when I get a red pepper to mature. I want to make chow chow using all ingredients from Glynn’s Farm.
Egg Plant: Too early to tell. I set out plants in the garden and in the back-door flower bed. The ones in the flower bed look better, but they’re all blooming, so I hope to have a good crop. I want to can Caponata again when I get egg plant from the garden.
Garlic: I have lots of plants from planting cloves, but I have to wait and see what they do when it’s time to pull them up.
Sunflowers: I had a “volunteer” sunflower that came up early and died early in the old fish pond. I planted some seed too in early May and they are better than head-high, but haven’t bloomed yet.

That’s it for the garden for now. I’ll do a bit of catch up on the flowers in a day or two.

Days of Rest

I've gotten the red-dyed concrete edging in place, plus I've planted delphinium, and foxglove plants I bought for $2.00ea at a WalMart clearance, plus I have red morning glories coming up in front of the deck. I also have purpler cone flower seed planted in front of the deck. I put a bed of caladiums and rooted purple coleus on either side of the garage door and another new bed with esperanza and purple petunias at the south end of the iris bed behind the garage. Next up: weeding in the garden and cleaning up the edges of the beds in front and west side of the house. I'm also expanding the bird-bath bed to include four rose bushes. I'll make pictures when some of this begins to show up enough in a picture, but right now we're having a nice rain every day, so I'm glad to take the time off. My "man " Carter plans to mow this week if he can get it done between the rains.

The Race to the End of May

In East Texas, it is important to get all your heavy-duty planting done by the end of May, particularly seeds. There is still frequent rain, which helps get plants started and seeds sprouting, and it is not yet so unbearably hot, you can't work more than an hour or so in the morning before about 10 o'clock and maybe a couple of hours in the late afternoon, early evening. Of course, to complicate life, I decided to reassemble my "RV" deck at the side of the house. After I get it put up, I'll build a 3 foot extension so that the back door opens on the deck too. I couldn't manage to get it situated in the right place because of the back door steps, hence the extension. So, first the deck.....

Reassembling the "Chez Sugar" Deck
When I had the travel trailer, before settling down in San Augustine, I built a deck for the trailer that was bolted together so it could be disassembled go with me as I traveled, then set it up when I parked the trailer. Good idea, but not practical since it was too heavy to take along except on permanent moves and too much work both to disassemble and to reassemble. Never the less, I did move it with me to San Augustine and decided to reassemble it here at 610 East Columbia since I don't plan to move from here until it's time for a nursing home. Below is a couple of pictures of how the deck looked when it adorned the trailer. The sweet dog in one of the pictures was my shitsu, Chewy, who since the picture was taken has gone to doggy heaven.
















The next picture is how the back door looked last year where I have now reassembled the deck.
Next are some pictures of how the deck looks now reassembled.
















































Edgings:
Another large project was to line the borders of the back-yard bed and the new beds around the deck with red-dyed, cement edging ($1.97 for one 16-inch piece.) This was necessary to keep the soil from running out of the beds when I water. The edging is not yet installed in the deck beds, but you can see it in the picture of the back-door bed.

Plantings:
While I was still assembling the deck, to "spell" myself, I began planting both plants and seed.

Plants: I found portulaca on sale 2 for 1, and bought two six-packs. One I planted with a pot of purslane in an old bird bath that wouldn't serve any longer as a bird bath. I had replaced the one in the bird-bath bed. I also had already planted six purple and white petunias and six pink petunias in the back-door bed. I bought two hanging baskets for the bird feeder hooks (plus another seed-type feeder) and planted red and white petunias in the new hanging baskets. In addition, I separated some purple and lavender verbena from a three-year old pot and planted a start of each color in the back-door bed. I also bought on "clearance" a hanging basket of Boston fern, which I plan to divide, a pot of "blanket daisies" which I planted on the left-hand side of the deck bed and a pot of yellow kolanchoe, which I planted on the right-hand side of the deck bed, but will probably end up moving.
Seeds: I don't usually have much luck with seeds, but I never give up. I planted miniature xenia seed strips from Parker (which don't come up--at least not more than about 1/2 of the seeds, but none the less, I planted strips just inside the cement border edging of the deck beds. I did the same thing May 14 when I put the edging around the back-door bed, but so far nada. I planted red morning glories (seed from Lowes that cost $2.24 for 17 seeds!!) I soaked the seeds overnight and planted them on May 18. Glory be!! they are coming up today (May 21.) I also planted purple cone-flower seeds in the beds in front of the deck. (52 seeds--count them-- for $2.24, also from Lowe's) I planted about 32 blue morning glory seeds back along the fence behind the garden. Soaked them too, so maybe they'll come up too. I've also planted Shasta
Daisies (two pots), thyme and oreganos seeds. The daisies and oregano are coming up, but so far nada from the thyme. I also bought a pot of basil with three plants in it. Divided it and put one plant in the back-yard bed near the rosemary, two in pots, and gave away one.
Transplanting: Although it's supposed to be hard to transplant Zinnias, I gave it a shot and transplanted into pots several that "volunteered" in the bird-bath bed. They are flourishing. Today, I planted two "game cock" coleus I rooted, one in each of the pots of zinnias.


How the Garden Grows:
Here are three pictures from the "farm" showing how the corn grew: April 3, April 23, and May 21.