Monday, 12/15/14

.9" of rain overnight.  Day dawned very foggy.

Partly cloudy with a gusty south wind blowing by late morning.

Clouds returned during the late afternoon.  A new cold front began moving through during the evening.  No additional rain.

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Monday, 12/15/14

Sunday, 12/14/14

Veggie garden area with large sweetgum and smaller persimmon trees growing at the edge.  Were we totally hardcore gardeners, I suppose we'd cut down the trees growing so close to our garden so their roots would not grow into the garden beds, but we are "tree huggers" and just put up with the tree roots stealing nutrients from the beds.

High, thin clouds late morning and for most of the day.  South wind increasing.  A new cold front nearing.  Should arrive Monday.

A full schedule of fall shows; meant we did no fall garden housekeeping.  Jo took advantage of a nice winter afternoon to clean up the asparagus and corn beds.

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Sunday, 12/14/14

Sweet Potatoes

A light freeze is predicted for this weekend, so it's time to dig our sweet potato crop.  They say the potatoes will rot if left in the ground for very long after the tops freeze back.  I don't really know if that is true or not.  We always dig when a freeze is predicted or right after the green tops are nipped by a freeze.

Jo is removing wire row covers so we can get to the bed.  It may look as if she's dancing, but her arms are wrapped around a welded wire tunnel.  The way the sweet potato vines are trimmed back to the wire shows why the wire covers are necessary.  Rabbits and/or deer would feast on the green sweet potato vines if they were not covered.

We had a mediocre sweet potato harvest this year:  A little over 47# from thirty feet of garden bed.  There was quite a bit of rodent damage, but there always is.  I don't know how to fence out mice and voles.

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Sweet Potatoes

In the Garden: July 27, 2014

"Fallow" bed.  Contains a few old cabbages, a few dill plants (our dill did not germinate and thrive well) and some volunteer zinnias.  Also, sprouting buckwheat, a cover crop Jo just planted a few days ago.  (We plant dill because it is a favorite host plant for black swallowtail butterflies.) 

Corn:  Last year at this time, I was lamenting that our corn was just now tasseling because we'd planted so late.  This year, it's not yet even to the tasseling stage.  Pretty soon we will be growing fall corn.  The only problem with that is:  In a (more normal) hot and dry summer, the corn won't produce much -- or, maybe, nothing at all.

Potato Digging Day:  Bed before digging.  Potato plants have died back.  Volunteer coreopsis is doing well.  I'll try to dig around the flowers and save as many as I can.  Native bee pollinators visit them often.  Unfortunately, a bloom on the end of a long, spindly stems makes capturing their visits in a photo difficult.

Red potatoes produced well, but we harvested almost no Yukon Golds.

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In the Garden: July 27, 2014

Carrots

Jo figured she might as well go ahead and harvest our fall carrot crop. They'd grown all they were going to grow. Leaving them in the ground would only risk rodent damage.

Lettuce and carrots Jo harvested. We've never had any luck growing carrots. Because our soil is thin and contains a lot of clay and rocks, our carrots were always short and stubby. We "solved" this problem and achieved success at growing carrots by planting a short, stubby variety.

Not all the carrots fully developed. They're still tasty, but peeling is tricky.

Carrots

Asparagus

Our asparagus is finally starting to yellow and die back for the winter.

Asparagus

Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #5

A large view of the American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) shows it still appears to be dormant. Everything around it is greening up, but the persimmon shows no change. I've "seen" this tree every year for the past 24 springs, but until I started paying closer attention to it for The Tree Year, I never realized it was one of the last trees to leaf out and/or bloom.

A closer inspection of the persimmon tree, show that it is finally preparing to leaf out. Leaf buds on April 6, are shown above.

The leaf buds are opening a few days later on April 10.


Previous Tree Year posts for this American Persimmon.

Celebrate a tree in 2011.  It's easy:  Observe, photograph, sketch, or discuss and share with other tree huggers.  Please visit The Tree Year 2011 to participate or find other blog posts dedicated to trees from around the world.

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Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #5

Garden 2011: Broccoli and More

After transplanting the full row of broccoli, Jo watered them with a fish emulsion mixture. The dogs think fish emulsion smells like something that really needs to be rolled in. (Part #1 of transplanting broccoli into the garden is here.)

Finally Jo covered the newly transplanted veggies -- broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage -- with high-tech mini-greenhouses, otherwise known as cloches, which I photographed the following day. We're not likely to get temperatures cold enough to damage the transplants, but the cloches also help keep them from drying out and protect the tender young plants from being buffeted around in our gusty south wind. (Yes, I really do need to crank up our lawnmower and mow the aisles between garden beds.)

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the garden... While it's not necessary to make an emergency run into town for whipped cream just yet, our strawberries are blooming.

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Garden 2011: Broccoli and More

Garden 2011: Transplanting Broccoli Into The Garden #1

Broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage sets ready to go into the garden. Jo usually starts our transplants from seeds, but this year she had a problem with the seed company and did not receive seeds soon enough to do that. Instead, she bought the sets at our local feed store.

We'd already prepared the bed, so all Jo had to do was lay out a center line and start digging. She'd purchased the transplants over a week ago, but a new cold front that arrived on Monday caused her to wait until Tuesday to set them out in the garden. Depending upon what kind of weather we were having, the transplants had either been soaking up a few rays under a grow light or setting out on the porch "hardening off".

And another broccoli goes into the ground. There's a hill directly to the west of our place, so sunset in the garden occurs a couple of hours before actual sunset. I thought I might have to start using the camera's flash before Jo finished planting.

Part #2 of "Transplanting Broccoli" will follow soon.

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Garden 2011: Transplanting Broccoli Into The Garden #1

Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #4

"My" American Persimmon and "Jo's" Sweetgum tree in the fog.

A weak cold front moved through our area on Friday.  Heavy fog accompanied the slight drop in temperature.

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Celebrate a tree in 2011.  It's easy:  Observe, photograph, sketch, or discuss and share with other tree huggers.  Please visit The Tree Year 2011 to participate or find other blogs post dedicated to trees from around the world.

Previous American Persimmon posts here.

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Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #4

Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #3

Our American Persimmon enjoyed a variety of weather over the past week.  Tuesday (2/1/11) began with light rain.  Our temperature dropped below freezing mid-morning, the rain became freezing rain and ice began accumulating on everything that was up off the ground.  The freezing rain lasted for several hours, but fortunately, there was not enough ice accumulation to cause any limbs breakage or other visible damage to our trees.  Sleet and the a light dusting of snow followed the freezing rain.

Wednesday was mostly clear and cold yielding lots of sparkling ice, but little melting.

Snow began mid-day on Friday (2/4/11) and kept falling throughout the afternoon and evening.  We were predicted to receive a couple of inches of snow, but about twice that amount actually fell.  It was a wet, sticky snow that clung to the trees, but caused no damage.  Saturday was sunny and our temperature climbed up to around 40°F/4°C.  There was much snow melting, but plenty of it is still around.

Celebrate a tree in 2011.  It's easy:  Observe, photograph, sketch, discuss and share with other tree huggers.  Please click the logo above for participation details.

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Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #3

Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #2

Photo taken on January 19, 2011.

This American Persimmon I'm observing for The Tree Year 2011 has had a very hard life in recent years:


2007:  We had a very late hard freeze.  The persimmon had already bloomed and set fruit.  All fruits were killed by the freeze.  All our trees suffered that year.  Most were blooming or had bloomed, and a few were even beginning to leaf out.  All that tender growth was killed by the low temperatures.  There were hardly any fruits, nuts or other seed forms that year.  As I remember it, only the hickories escaped damage and bore nuts because they'd not yet bloomed.


2008:  As if to compensate for not bearing fruit the previous year, this persimmon tree was loaded with persimmon fruit in 2008 -- too loaded.  Several limbs broke under the weight of ripening persimmons.


2009:  A very bad year of all of the trees on our place.  We had a severe ice storm in late January.  No tree escaped damage.  Many we stripped of branches, snapped in two or fell and were uprooted.  It's not an exaggeration to say that the woods on our property will not look the same within my lifetime.  Considering all the damage, this persimmon came through the event in fairly good shape, only losing several more branches.  Branches lost in 2008 and 2009 are the reason for this tree's very asymmetrical shape and prolific new branch growth.


2010:  Close to normal, though our summer was very hot and dry.  The persimmon bore fruit and there were no obvious signs of ill effects caused by our hot, dry weather, but I'm sure the dry conditions added to the tree's load of stress.


2011:  I will observe, photograph and see what happens.

Celebrate a tree in 2011.  It's easy:  Observe, photograph, sketch, discuss and share with other tree huggers.  Please click the logo above for participation details.

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Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #2

The Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #1

January 13, 2011

This American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) is one of the two trees I've chosen to celebrate in 2011.  It's a "yard tree", growing just outside of our vegetable garden.  Choosing a yard tree has advantages.  Observing and photographing  will be easy.  Also, this persimmon and I are old friends.  We've known each other for the past twenty-five years.  The disadvantage is that it will be impossible for me to photograph this old friend without including a lot of yard and garden clutter.  So be it.  The tree is more important than the clutter.


Persimmon facts:  Persimmons are members of the ebony family (Ebenaceae).  There are about 200 species of ebonies worldwide.  Most are tropical.  Persimmons are the only member of the ebony family native to North America.

Celebrate a tree in 2011.  It's easy:  Observe, photograph, sketch, discuss and share with other tree huggers.  Please click the logo above for participation details.

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The Tree Year 2011: American Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) #1

Spangled Skimmer Dragonfly (Libellula cyanea)

Spangled Skimmer Dragonfly (Libellula cyanea)

A bit torn and tattered, but still able to catch insects like this Spotted Cucumber Beetle removed from our garden.


Spangled Skimmers are common in eastern North America as far west as Kansas and Texas.  Males are blue.  Females are brown with yellow stripes.  They prefer well-vegetated ponds and lakes and slow-moving sections of streams.  (BugGuide)

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Spangled Skimmer Dragonfly (Libellula cyanea)

Buck in the Garden

Buck deer in our garden.

(Photo:  Marvin Smith on 12/01/09)

More deer than normal have visited our garden this fall and winter. Most are females. I've counted as many as nine does browsing in our garden area at the same time. Bucks are usually more shy and careful. They seldom emerge from the woods' edge and come into the open garden. This buck was more bold -- or foolish. Keeping deer out of the garden is something we try very hard to accomplish in spring and summer, but enjoy seeing them close to the house in late fall and winter.

What the buck really wants is a chance to sample our strawberry plants.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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Buck in the Garden

Our 2009 Gardening Season Begins

Jo is weeding the bed where our red potatoes will soon be planted.


The veggie gardening season of 2009 has officially begun. On the one hand, it's terrific that we can finally get outside and get to gardening. On the other hand, ahead lies about six months of almost daily work out in the garden.

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Our 2009 Gardening Season Begins

Buck Deer in the Garden

A group of five buck deer decided to check out our garden area this morning.  (My apologies for shots hurriedly taken through a dirty window.)












The bucks just milled around browsing for a while.  (You can see a little bit of the light dusting of snow we received on Sunday still hanging around in places not yet touched by the sun.)










After a bit, something scared the bucks and they all hightailed it for the woods.








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Buck Deer in the Garden

A Little Miscellaneous

Dogwood leaves and berries.















Turn out the lights; the garden's over.














Our road out ... up near the gate.













The dill was the only plant in the garden not damaged by our light freeze.






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A Little Miscellaneous

Pathetic Potato Harvest

Background: Due to a variety of circumstances more or less beyond our control, Jo and I didn't even begin preparing the beds and planting our garden until after our last spring art fair which was held on the first weekend in June. Because of our late start, we didn't bother planting some crops -- like corn. We anticipated problems with other crops. We figured the question was: Would the crops produced before succumbing to the prolonged heat and dryness typical of our late summer?

One barely full flat of Yukon Golds is our pathetic potato harvest for 2008. We normally have four or five of those wooden flats heaping full.

That question proved irrelevant. The later part of this summer was much cooler and wetter than most. Had I known this in advance, I would have predicted a bumper crop of veggies. I would have been wrong. Some veggies -- like tomatoes and green beans -- produced well. Others -- like the potatoes we harvested today -- did not do so well. I really do not know why our potatoes produced so poorly. I've heard others also had poor potato yields. Ditto for peppers (bell, jalapeno, etc.) which are usually a "nothing to it" plant to grow.

A half of five gallon bucket of sweet potatoes instead of our normal harvest of 3+ buckets full.

As far as conditions unique to our garden that might have contributed to our dismal potato crop: The Yukon Golds never produced the normal amount of foliage. First they were attacked by a heavy infestation of squash bugs sucking out their juices and then blister beetles ate what little foliage the potatoes had managed to grow. Mid-season squash bugs and late season blister beetles seems especially bad the year. Squash bugs aren't usually a problem on potatoes in our garden.

We actually planted fewer sweet potato slips this year. Jo thought she might be planting the sweet potatoes too close together so they competed with each other for nutrients. She experiment by planting fewer potatoes farther apart, thinking each plant might produce more and/or larger potatoes. That experiment was a resounding failure.

The sweet potato vines were still growing well. The rabbits had even stopped keeping the edges trimmed.

We normally dig sweet potatoes right before the first frost which isn't even in our forecast yet, but we decided to go ahead and harvest them today since the ground is relatively dry and rain is in our forecast. I doubt the potatoes were apt to get any larger or more numerous.

Finally, both potato beds were hard to dig because of the tree roots that had grown into them over the summer. Perhaps those roots had robbed nutrients. (Cutting trash trees that have grown up around the edge of the garden is one of this winter's projects.)

While we dug potatoes, a variety of butterflies were enjoying the garden flowers. The zinnias are getting a bit ragged this late in the season, but they are still growing and attracting butterflies.

(Left to right: Monarch, Cloudless Sulphur and Painted Lady)

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Pathetic Potato Harvest

Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae)

Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae)

For several weeks during the fall Sulphurs are the most common butterflies here in the Ozarks.  Okra's long-tubed blooms are well suited to Sulphurs' feeding habits.  The end results are excellent yellow on yellow photo opportunities.

From Butterflies and Moths of North America and the BugGuide:

Identification: Upper surface of male is lemon yellow with no markings. Female is yellow or white; outer edges of both wings with irregular black borders; upper  forewing with dark spot in cell. Lower surface of hindwing of both sexes with 2 pink-edged silver spots.

Life history: Males patrol with rapid flight, searching for receptive females. Eggs are laid singly on young leaves or flower buds of host plants; caterpillars eat leaves and rest on underside of leaf petioles.

Flight: Many flights year around in the Deep South; may have one flight in late summer in other southern states; immigrants to northern states in August or September usually do not reproduce.

Caterpillar hosts: Cassia species in the pea family (Fabaceae).

Adult food: Nectar from many different flowers with long tubes including cordia, bougainvilla, cardinal flower, hibiscus, lantana, and wild morning glory.


Habitat: Disturbed open areas including parks, yards, gardens, beaches, road edges, abandoned fields, scrub

Range: Permanent resident from Argentina north to southern Texas and the Deep South. Regular visitor and occasional colonist in most of the eastern United States and the Southwest.

Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus)

From the University of Illinois Extension Service:

Okra is a tall-growing, warm-season, annual vegetable from the same family (Mallow) as hollyhock, rose of Sharon and hibiscus. The immature pods are used for soups, canning and stews or as a fried or boiled vegetable. The hibiscus like flowers and upright plant (3 to 6 feet or more in height) have
ornamental value for backyard gardens.

Other okra links:

All About Okra

Texas A and M University

Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae)