They’re larger than normal, hardier than your average one and much more productive. They bear sweet, sweet juicy fruit and once you have one, you can’t go back.

Of course, I’m talking about Apache Blackberries, a thornless strain adapted to this area. We bought one at North Haven Gardens on impulse after much careful consideration and research about 2 weeks ago and it’s been waiting to get planted. In that time, it’s actually flowered and set fruit, a whole 2 blackberries, though it supposedly won’t do much this year.  You can actually just make out one berry at the top of the picture above.

They are cold hardy to -20 which makes them a 50-50 bet around here in DFW after the next ice age sets in. You fertilize them in the spring just before new growth appears which probably means end of February. I may actually buy another one and plant it as well since 1 seems so lonely. They set fruit on last year’s canes and thus, once you’ve harvested, you should prune the bush fairly soon afterwards.

Our first day lily bloomed April 27th this year.  We have several more blooms on the way but this one is nice.  We’ve planted about 6 different kinds of day lilies but haven’t marked any of them so it’s always a surprise when they bloom.

Well, this here garden blog is a travesty of the medium at this point. However, that’s not for a lack of activity in our gardens, just a lack of motivation to write anything about. But worry not, fair (single) reader, this will soon change starting today with this random garden update brought to you by One Barrel Rum, the delicious taste of Belize.

There are far too many things in the ground to write about them all today so we’ll just have a little overview. We recently made a trip to the Dallas Arboretum’s annual plant sale. However, we went on Sunday as that was the only day we could get there and things were pretty picked over. If you want the best stuff, you need to hit it on Friday night but be prepared to get hit with the carts and bags of 300 other people looking for the best stuff.

We ended up getting the following items in the leftover bins in the back:

• Variegated Tapioca, a large tropical foliage plant that grows as an annual here in DFW and supposedly grows to a height of 30 inches and a width of 18 inches though we have anecdotal evidence it may get as big as 6 feet.
• An esperanza to replace the one that didn’t make it through the winter last year. It has beautiful, 2 inch yellow blooms through out the summer and fall.
• Sapphire Showers Duranta which grows to 5 ft. and has a great fountain like shape. The butterflies supposedly love it.
• Two Explosive Embers Pepper plants for the front yard.
• A type of hibiscus that grows to 9 ft which will be interesting if it comes true.

We’ve also spent a ton of money at Calloway’s and North Haven Gardens already this year with a hundred or so thrown towards Covington’s and Classic Gardens. We’ll have more pictures and stories as things move along into summer time.

This weekend kinda bummed me out, what with the nut-busting cold we had in April but today, I got home to find out that cold aside, my southern cowpeas (better known as black-eyed peas, actually a bean, but I like the way southern cowpea rolls off the. . .well the. . .nevermind) have germinated right on schedule and three of them are poking their heads up out of the soil right now.

I’d post a picture but we moved 10 wheelbarrows of mulch out of the front drive tonight so that our Home Owners Association didn’t put a cap in our ass-paragus which they threatened to do.  Tomorrow, I’ll try to post the picture as well as the information on my southern cowpeas such as germination time, time to harvest and whatnot.

I’d like to post a picture of the package but haven’t had much luck making a macro shot with my little Canon A10.

This picture may look very similar to the picture below it but if you look closely, you’ll see one minor difference. That yellow tag is connected to a space heater which is currently under the tarp inside a tomato cage to keep it from doing too much damage. It’s supposed to get down to 32 or lower tonight and so far, my veggies look like they’ve survived. I’m doing what I can to ensure that trend continues.

I may burn down the house but I’m going to have tomatoes this year, damn it.

Global warming can’t happen fast enough if you ask me. Granted, the Maldives might go under before I get to dive them but good grief, it’s currently 45 degrees in Dallas and moving towards the freezing mark tonight and tomorrow. That makes it tough to keep tomatoes, squash, peppers and basil alive. Below is a shot of the new garden as of 7 PM tonight. I may hook up the space heater tomorrow night in a futile attempt to keep from having to replant.

For God’s sake, it’s April 6th and I’m worried about my tomatoes freezing (that may or may not be a euphemism).

We’ve (and by we, I mean me) planted several veggies and herbs in the new veggie garden. On the veggie side, we have cucumbers, black-eye peas (Southern Cowpeas – mmmm cowpeas), lima beans, three kinds of tomatoes, three kinds of peppers, two kinds of squash and swiss chard.

On a lark, I also planted luffa which is exactly what you think, a future luffa sponge which comes from a gourd. It’s supposed to be completely happy with the summer heat here and is even edible when young. When it is left on the vine until it dries, you can take the skin off and you have your own little source of luffa sponges.

I’m skeptical about the success of the chard in our summers but it comes highly recommended so I’m giving it a try. I’ll post some pictures and info on types soon.

This is a little blog to keep track of our travails and tribulations growing plants and flowers in North Texas. It will be used both as a source of information as well as a garden journal to remember when things happened. We often forget things like germination times, when to fertilize, and when flowers bloomed or came up first in the spring. By creating this site, hopefully that will change.

We’ve been doing a ton of planting already this spring and have a new veggie garden to report on so for now, we’ll say this is enough general information and get to the good stuff.