First harvest...

Earlier this spring, when I was starting my garden in my haphazard lasidasical way... I found a packet of beans with about 8 seeds in it. I stuck them in the ground, and walked away... and today, I pulled a handfull of yellow wax beans off the 5 surviving plants.

Yeah, I know... not much, but I'm only feeding myself, and I most certainly am not going to can any, and frozen beans are always too tough to bear... so a few occasional handfuls of beans are more than plenty.

Today, I also harvested my first tomato. A porter... which is a little guy, smaller than a roma and larger than a cherry. I would have included him in the pic, but I had a flashback to childhood, and I sat right down in the garden and bit into it while it was still warm from the sun... wonderful...

just stuff...

Just some shots around the yard... this pic is a little overexposed, it doesn't really show the firecracker red of the bloom... but you get the idea... Cleistocactus winteri, aka golden rat tail or my preferred common name, golden cat tail... click the label if you want to see past pics of the whole plant...

And of course, the Prickly pears are in bloom... I was worried that I was going to lose a lot of blooms and therefore fruits... which are very important to me for making jelly, but it turned out not so much.

Now this is a foundling from the side of the road, and I'm gonna see if I can do something with it... an Areca palm... Chrysalindocarpus lutescens. They make decent parlor palms... and if I was a little bit further south, decent yard palms to 10' tall... but this guy has been neglected.

Step 1: cut off anything that is obviously dead and leave anything that is green...

I realize that the couple of leaves left are in pretty bad shape, but there's enough green on them to still be doing SOME photosynthesis... and since they're the only leaves left, I'm leaving them for now...

SAGO UPDATE

The second Sago did eventually put up new fronds... kinda... it seems to be putting up 1 - count them ONE, new leaves. One of it's four remaining leaves has died off. The other three... beat up as they are, are staying on there for photosynthesising purposes. I just don't feel like further weakening an already obviously weak plant... of course, this is way too much bother for most people, but I seem to find a perverse pleasure in reviving the near deceased...

The other plant however is doing just fine! Remarkably fine, actually, and he's about ready to find a permanent home in the yard.

Hoping everyone is having a great Memorial day, complete with Bar-B-Que and lots of family and friends.

Later!

Chamaelobvia 'Rose Quartz'

And this morning we have blooms from a wonderful Chamaelobvia "Rose Quartz", one of the hybrids of Peanut Cactus... I'm not even going to get into the nomclamature on this... lets just say that there are people out there who call this Lobvia, Echinopsis, and a few others... it's one of the plants that have historically bounced around from genus to genus. Yes, I realize that we should all know the accurate latin names of our plants. It would, however, be very helpful if you people made up your minds what they were before you twisted my arm to remember it.

I will take on the 'Rose Quartz' part of the name though... I've seen the rock called rose quartz. They're pale, milky pink. Absolutely nothing to do with these vibrant ruby toned blooms. I realize that the people who develop the cultivars and hybrids get to name them, but there should be some standards...

Anyway, this plant showed up at the house last July, in this post.

Peanut cactus are one of the easiest cactus to grow, and very rewarding. Repeated flushes of blooms all summer, unlike most cactus which bloom more or less once and you better be waiting for it with camera poised when it happens, cause it will only be there for a few minutes... Culture is simple. Pot it, stick it in the sun, and throw some water in it's general direction every once in a while. Come winter, stick it in a window, and try to remember which window next spring.

Pseudoechinopsis

well, I woke up at 5 am out of habit, and I don't have to be anywhere until 9:30 so I was goofing off with the plants... as much as you can in the dark that is...

I did have this little guy blooming outside the back door this morning... one of those annoying ID's... Pseudoechinopsis 'dominoes' although the tag also says Echinopsis species... I don't really like those kind of ID's... it's not a real ID as far as I'm concerned...

And the tag didn't say one darned thing about it being a night-bloomer. Which is OK I suppose, but not really... all it had was a bunch of standard Echinopsis info that I'm not entirely sure is going to be accurate for this plant... I'd like to know how big the plant gets, if it produces offsets or just sits there like a lump, what kind of temperatures can it be exposed to... that sort of thing.

And of course, there's nothing on the web about it at all...

I'm pretty sure that it's a hybrid of some sort, only because most echinopsis you see are and I don't think the name pseudoechinopsis is valid, but I certainly may be wrong.

Other than that... I couldn't tell you.

Anyway... I brought the thing in and took a pic. It is a nice enough plant, and it blooms well. Night blooming plants have the advantage of blooming when I'm home, but they have the disadvantage of blooming when I'm asleep, and usually when I can't stay up all night to see them because I've got things to do in the morning.

And, just as an aside... The second Sago palm is definitely putting up leaves... I'm not expecting as much from this one. 1) the trunk is smaller which means the plant is probably younger and 2) it only had 4 leaves left alive on the plant when I found it, so it's probably not been photosynthesising as much energy for new growth as the other plant. But we'll see, won't we?

Finally, an ID on this darned plant!

So... I've had this darned plant for 2 years now, and I've never been able to pin down an ID... so it finally occured to me to send some pics over to the wonderful guys at Cactus Blog... I mean, I've been reading their posts for a year now, and they are very knowledgable guys and they ID all sorts of things for other people.. why the hell didn't I ask before, right?

well, they've definitely ID'd it as Mammillaria perbella ... which was one of my tentative ID's, but compared to the pics on the sites it just didn't look the same.

Turns out that since this is growing in cultivation, the spines and the wool in the axils aren't as thick.

but it's definitely a M. perbella.

Well, that's a relief... now what am I going to worry about?

And the Beer Can Garden EVOLVES!!!!

Now, I've posted a couple of times about the beer can garden... the first time HERE

Basically, here's the story in a nutshell...

this is in a rather neglected part of Ft. Worth... unfortunately, the yuppies have decided on an urban renewal plan and condos are going in.

so the Beer Can man had to remove a whole bunch of the beer cans, and what was actually a rather amazing sight was reduced to something rather pitiful. The reason for this was that they were supposedly impeding foot traffic outside his fence, which is technically public property. Now, even though it's public property, the city doesn't feel inclined to maintain it in any way, and there's no sidewalks, but the city had the law on it's side and the beer can garden was partially dismantled.

and it looked pitiful.

and now, it's starting to look like something again...

now... as mentioned in previous posts... these neighborhoods exist in every larger city... forgotten little pockets crammed between factories and the railroad... sure, there are trains going by at 2 am, but nobody cares... and you can usually do what you want. That's the only real reason for living there. I have personally seen goats wandering less than a mile from downtown, and a dozen old toilet bowls planted with geraniums lined up in military precision.

It's eccentric.

I'll give you that.

But, really, it's kinda cool too...

Random pics and stuff...

just some random pics around the yard... not sure that there's anything all that interesting going on...

This is an actual Mansfield Cemetary cactus blooming in the back... not bad for a cutting that is a little less than a year old, huh? As you can see, he's already growing offsets, and the smaller cutting directly next to him is more typical of the cuttings that I have... still too small, but I expect big things from them next year...

And the winter may have killed my Variagated Agave americana... but the roots have evidently survived underground and are starting to resprout... how cool is that? I'll probably take one inside this winter, as they're evidently not as hardy as the unvariagated form. The web-sites aren't in agreement as to exactly how hardy they are... so we'll not take any chances...

And here's a common everyday thistle by the side of the road. I've always been fond of thistle. I have no real reason why, just am...

And here's the new growth on the Sago Palm... The other rescued sago may be showing some signs of stirring to life... but it's very subtle... anyway... as soon as these leaves get up and hardened off, I'll cut off the older beat up leaves, what few are left, and try to find a place in the yard to put this guy... where he'll sit for at least 3 months before he puts up another whirl of leaves... they don't grow their leaves one at a time, but rather in periodic bursts. Sometimes only one group a year, and never it seems more than 3 a year. hmmmmm.

Anyway... no day off for me this week... I've got to work on Monday for someone who's got a Dr's appointment... oh well...

Ft Worth Botanic Garden on Mothers Day...

As some of my older readers know, my Mother passed away last September... so I have to say I wasn't looking forward to my first Mothers Day without her.

Don't get me wrong... I'm past the grief stricken part, but the thing about Mother's day is that there are quite a few of us out there who don't really have a mom around to celebrate with. Let's face it folks... there's not a lot of guidelines for the people who are outside the box. I mean, what exactly am I supposed to do? There's no tradition that I know of... so for some reason I decided that I'd celebrate Mothers day with Mother Earth...

Anyway, after church I drove a few miles and went to the Ft. Worth Botanic Garden. The rose gardens are in full bloom right now, and they were getting a lot of attention from family outings today. Not to mention a few photographers and young ladies in wedding dresses... I steered clear of them. Don't get me wrong... Roses are great. I've just seen them before. Today I went into parts of the Gardens that I don't normally...

The FWBG has a very natural garden plan. Much of it looks about as much like untamed woods as a planned garden can, and consequently it also has a lot of wildlife... all the way up to coyotes that tend to stay hidden all day but come out at night I'm told. I started my day in these "untamed" areas... and right off, I found a 4 leaf clover in a patch of white clover by the pond.

Actually, 5 minutes of poking around yielded 3 four leaf clovers... not bad huh? I've got them pressing in a novel I had in the truck...

I also saw a heron stalking through the pools...

But he'd better watch his step. There are snapping turtles lurking under the surface...

As naturalistic as the plan is... it is a botanic garden, and there are some water Iris planted around...

After about an hour of wandering around and snapping pics in a very distracted sort of way... I walked over to the Conservatory.

Now, the conservatory of the FWBG is a rather overgrown and overblown place... It's actually rather small, but they've got a lot of plants kind of crammed together in there. I've never been particularly fond of it... primarily because I always get the urge to attack it with pruning sheers. Spent leaves are always underfoot, and branches and vines are always threatening to strangle you... but that artificial wildness appealed to me today so I paid my one dollar entrance fee and wandered in.

This first plant I know because Mr. Subjunctive talked about it on his blog... but I'm sure that his looks nothing like this... it's a Screw Pine, altogether about 18 feet tall, and complete with arial roots that look like they may become weapons...

The next is a tropical pitcher plant. Nepenthes of some sort... it wasn't tagged though... (don't you just HATE that...)

the nest two pics are a hanging fringed hibiscus...

in the second pic you can see a huge NOID bromiliad of some sort that the plant is draping itself over...

and here's the path through the conservatory, past the banana trees...

And this is the humungousest (is that a real word) corn plant draceana that I've ever seen or ever hope to. About 25 feet tall... which would be really really cool if I was fonder of draceana...

and this is a chenile plant that is hanging it's fuzzy flowers over the path right at my face level... you have to duck to get past these...

And this was going haywire... the plant clump is huge and there were at least 2 dozen of the blooms going...

And that's how I spent the better part of my afternoon.

Really, replacing Mothers Day with Mother Earth day worked for me. I came out of it not quite as moody as I went in, and trust me, that's a good thing...

As for any of you out there who do have a Mom to celebrate with... treasure every moment.

And for all my readers who are Moms... have a great and blessed day...

The last pot of Chilli for a while...

No pics though... I ate it all up...

For my final pot of chilli for the season, I made one of my Mom's favorite recipes...

Detroit Chilli (I don't really know why this is "Detroit" chilli... but that's what Mom always called it, and I learned at a very young age that questioning her could be dangerous... anyway, this is how it's written in her cookbook... )

brown:
1 lb hamburger
1 diced onion
1 clove crushed garlic

When meat is brown and the onions are transluscent add

3 tblspoons chilli powder (more or less to taste)
3 tblspoons cinnamon
salt and pepper to taste
and enough flour to soak up the grease.

Stir in quickly, so as not to scorch the cinnamon then pour in:

1 bottle of beer

as this is heating up, open 1 large (28 ounce) can of diced tomatoes
2 15 ounce cans of pinto or red beans.

- always drain and rinse beans, that way they won't cause as much gas -

Add tomatoes and beans when the mixture starts boiling, simmer for at least 1 hour, more is better.

It's amazing how the cinnamon and chilli powder combine their flavors...

but it's getting too hot here for chilli. Right at 90 degrees today, and our actual summer heat hasn't hit yet...

Look what I found scrounging around...

I was driving to the grocery store on trash day about a month ago... when I happened to see these by the road.

two badly treated cycas revoluta... more commonly known as sago palm. (of course a real sago palm is another plant entirely, but that's what these are called) It would appear that our rather hellacious winter had killed all of last years more tender growth, and had prompted a home-owner to just give up hope, so out they went to the curb.

Where I picked them up. That's because I'm pretty sure that if there's any green left on a plant, there is a chance that it can be recovered.

Well, as I said above, this was a month ago. And they've been sitting there looking like... well like that up there. Nothing. I suppose some gardeners would be discouraged. I however grow cactus. I'm used to plants sitting around doing nothing but looking like an unfriendly thorny lump for long stretches of time.

But then today... I saw this...

See that in the middle there? It's new growth! Specifically, it's new growth on the plant in the top right hand side of the first pic.

The other plant... well not so much yet...

But I'm not giving up hope yet. It still has those green leaves after all. And even if it's main growing tip never stirs to life, the plant can produce new growing tips off from the roots...

And why go through all this trouble? Lots of reasons.

1) I'm an experimental type of gardener. I like to do things just to see what happens

2) This plant is considered pretty drought tolerant, and if I get it in the ground it is reasonably hardy in my area.

3) Cycads are some of the oldest species of plants on the planet

4) While they're technically not a cactus or a succulent, they are however prickly enough to fit into my Prickly Plant theme and finally...

5) These are damned expensive plants!

That price tag was from last year, they've gone up a little last time I checked.

I see from my tiny bit of research that they like sandy, quick draining soils with some organic matter mixed in. Quite frankly, that describes the topsoil that you buy from the nurseries locally...

Anyway... my experience is more in the cacti realm... any wisdom from anybody out there?

Cemetary cactus all abloom...

All right, not the actual cemetary cactus... those are in another part of my yard... this is an Escobaria missouriensis that I'd had for a few years before... the actual cemetary cactus are producing blooms, or about 1/3 of the cuttings are... the other ones are still too small... But the slightly pinker toned blooms in my header photo were taken in the cemetary last year.

This plant crowns the top of a strawberry jar in my back yard, and by this time next year will have totally covered the opening...

It's been blooming for about a week now. Unfortunately, the blooms only open when the plant is getting direct sun. The sun moves behind the house and throws a shadow on the plant every day at about 4:30 pm... causing the blooms to close. So today, when I had a day off, was the first time I've been able to see the blooms open.

I'd move the whole thing to a sunnier spot... but all together it weighs well over a hundred lbs, and it's just not worth it to me for a blooming season that's going to last about 2 weeks.

I've found that photographs don't do these, or any cactus bloom, justice. Cactus flowers have a pearlescent sheen on their petals that is impossible to capture on film. But, you get the general idea, I'm sure...