Category Archives: Garden

Anything from any garden.

Winter Solstice 2013, Garden, Galveston, TX

Garden,

DSC01196 The garden one hour after the Galveston, TX Winter Solstice which occurred at 11:11AM CST.  It is cloudy today, so we cannot see the shadow marking the lowest point that the sun goes at  noon.  The photo was taken at about 12:20 PM, close enough to noon to have been interesting.

DSC01197 Winter Solstice narcissus, which will bloom one place or another over the coming weeks.DSC01198 Narcissus in the background  beat out the grass.   The Narcissus is darker green than the grass to the right.   The multi-colored green plant in the  foreground is  variegated ginger, which grew well before Ike.  The grass seemed to protect its roots, so that it is now flourishing for the first time in over five years.  I will check on the edibility of the roots.  I think that I know it is edible.

DSC01199 The narcissus around this cypress comes up later than some of the other bulbs.  This may be becaus I was placing coffee grounds around the cypress tree, and it raised up the level of the soil (fact), which may be the reason that the narcissus comes up later, (the kind of opinion that we could call a hypothesis).

.DSC01200 Dense narcissus around the live oak.

This summer solstice gives an opportunity to benchmark some of the plant progress in the kitchen garden, and the front  landscape garden.  It was a rainy 68 2/3 degrees Fahrenheit today.  Weeds will begin to grow again, soon.

Garden, 14th Week

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DSC01190Overview of garden 14th week,  a day before the winter solstice. DSC01191Green cabbages are growing better on the shadier south end of the garden.  The green cabbage at the far end of the garden is doing the best of all.  The garlic has gotten a lot bigger over the last week.  We had a small harvest of parsley to bake on our fish. DSC01192 Mesclun mix is growing  in the foreground.  We are supposed to have five varieties of salad greens in it.  I’ve seen at least two or three kinds. DSC01193 From front to back, lettuce, a very few carrots, perhaps a couple of beets, which were badly eaten by something, and  a couple of dill plants which will survive if it does not freeze. DSC01194 The larger growing radishes did the best.  one or two are probably overgrown, but we are keeping them until Christmas.  Some  may grow when the light changes.  We’ll see what happens to the others.  The garlic planted on this end of the garden is doing very well.  We may expect that, because with the clove, they may not be light dependent, yet, and must not need certain light conditions to be a switch. The whole onion I planted did not grow,  even though it does not need the energy.  Either the onion got damaged in transit to our house, or it needs certain light conditions.  The onion and chive seeds kept popping up and disappearing, even though October was an OK time for planting.  

Garden, 13th Week

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DSC01132 Eight days to go until winter solstice!

DSC01136 There are at least four radishes in here, ready to harvest.  Not very much, considering that I planted two packets of seeds for at  least a dollar each.  There are quite a few less developed radishes that may grow better when the days begin to lengthen.

DSC01133 Young red cabbage plants are doing a little better than they were, but still not visible from a distance.  There is a little mesclun mix in there.  Some newer seedlings are emerging again, now including a red lettuce, which did not come up before.  We’ll see what time does.

DSC01135 Dill does not like it too wet, because the dryer dill a little elevated from the near trench at the edge of the garden, where moisture and rain accumulate, is doing better, now.  But in the heat and dryness of the early fall, the dill was sprouting much better next to the garden’s edge where the higher level of moisture was a definite plus under these dryer conditions.

Next week will be just before the winter solstice, and in two weeks, we will be just after the winter solstice.