Last weekend, February 3rd to be exact, we planted our early spring garden.  We put in broccoli, red cabbage, rhubarb (mmm, strawberry-rhubarb pie), swiss chard, brussel sprouts and onions.  This week, I’m going to plant Irish potatoes in tires which helps not take up as much space in the garden since it takes until June for them to be ready.  I planted garlic in late October and it’s going well, looks like we’ll have about 16 heads.

It’s been really mild here lately so I’ve been jonesing to plant stuff and last weekend helped scratch the itch.  In another 30 days or so, it will be time to start thinking about summery type veggies.

We’ve been doing some pruning here and there and we’re going to redo a significant section of our back flowerbed once we get our new wrought iron fence in because several of the plants don’t get enough sun.  The fence will make the yard look a ton different and we’re both excited about it.  I’ll post pictures when the fence is up.

Things have been slow over here at Blowing Asparagus of late but I’m looking to change that.  I’m trying out a new “Self-Improvement by avoiding self improvement” technique that involves putting off things that really need to be done by writing for 30 minutes a day.  Ok, not really, I’m actually putting off surfing the tubes first thing in the morning until I’ve written for 30 minutes so I figure this site might get a few more updates.  This is number 1.  Note to self, write more in journal that people don’t read if you’re really going to write at 7 AM in the morning.

Our summer garden had some decent successes and some spectacular failures.  Our cowpeas were the main success, we got probably 3 full size quart jars out of 10 plants or so.  Mark that one down to plant next year.  Our tomatoes and peppers didn’t do nearly as well in the summer but got decent in the fall.  I’m not sure exactly why but that’s how it goes.

In the fall garden, the collards and lettuce were good as were the tomatoes.  We had such a warm fall that we harvested tomatoes up until December 3rd.  One thing to remember for next year when planting the fall garden is that it only gets sun on about half the plot because of how far south the sun is.  The neighbor’s fence really blocks it a lot.  Our garlic chives are dead because they just don’t get any sun.

Last week, I pulled everything up from the fall and summer and mulched really well.  We have 15-16 heads of garlic growing and that will be about it until January when I’ll plant potatoes and onions.

In other garden news, the satsuma was a success this year with 18 or so oranges.  The snapdragons and mums in the front are doing well though I need to do some work on the sprinkler system to get better coverage.  Because our bushes have gotten so high since they planted them, the sprinklers don’t fully cover the front beds.  I think I can get some of the 4 foot risers and fix the problem.

Another thing to remember for next year in the veggie garden is to plant more flowers around it so that the bees and wasps are attracted as pollinators.  My yellowneck squash never did anything this year but the luffa went crazy because it had so many more flowers.  The mexican heather by the back porch was really good at attracting bees so I think I’ll plant some of that around the garden next year to help with the pollination.

That’s really it for now, we’ll probably plant a tree or two later in the winter but most of our planting is done until spring.

Our gardens have been a mish-mash of success and failure this year, most of both I think we attribute to the rather odd weather for DFW.  After 4 months of rain in March, April, May and June, we’ve finally reverted to form with tons of hot weather.  I think this confused most plants but made a few here and there pretty happy.

From the veggie garden, really the only thing doing well at all is the southern cowpeas and pink-eyed purple hull peas.  The okra is producing but with only two plants, it’s not a lot (which is fine with Kat).  Everything else is pretty much useless.  However, the peppers are starting to look like they will put on a late burst of production.

The vitex is growing like crazy and the live oak in the front has really begun to put on some growth.  However, lots of plants are looking rather unplantlike and I’m hoping that the cooler fall weather will help out a little.

We fertilized the roses this past weekend in preparation for the fall display though in reality, our roses have been a bright spot throughout the summer.  The Belinda’s Dream has beem especially prolific in the back yard.

We haven’t planted much lately, though I’m planning on put in some veggies next weekend for a fall garden.  I’ll probably do some collards, maybe a lettuce of some sort and a root veggie, though I’m not sure what.  I want to try brussel sprouts as well even though my recollection of those are some of the worst memories of my childhood.