nothing much happening...

Nothing much happening over the past week... Today I did figure out how to get to a historic graveyard that you can see from the road, but there is no clear access too... turned out that the only road leading to it goes ambles between a natural gas rig, the electric company and the access road to the main water supply of a town... essentially, they don't want people visiting the area. The graveyard is locked up behind a gate, but I stuck the camera through and got a pic of one corner...

also, while I was there, I took a pic of the first of the winecups I've seen blooming this year...

and some of the wild verbena...

Then I came home and made another tire planter. This is what they look like if you have the rims still attached... I'll be painting it Terra Cotta tomorrow.

This one is for my sister, who insisted that she wanted one. My neighbor down the street was walking through the alley when I was making this one, and asked me to make her one. Really, I've made these things since I was a kid... as I explained in a previous post... (click the tag, and you'll find it!) It never occured to me that it was a special talent. Now I'm wondering if I should make a few for the Flea Market... the price of pots is so high, I bet I could get 15 or 20 each out of these...


And that's about all the excitement I've had.

Finally, the sun came out today... the rain was pretty much over yesteday, but no sun, and 45 degrees... Today, it got up to 80, and I loved every minute of it... really, when it comes right down to it, I'm a lizard. I kind of like the heat. Of course, come July and August, don't even try to remind me of that statement, because I'll come back, delete this post and swear you're insane.

But the sun and heat did finally prompt the Mammillaria sonorensis v. craigii to start opening it's buds... still not in it's full glory, but starting to put on a good show...

And a few Sweet Williams started to open up also... I planted this ones ancestors about 6 years ago, and there always seems to be a few around now...

And of course, since Julie showed off her tire planters, I just had to show off mine... You might remember this planter from when I illustrated how to make them in a post last year... click the tag under the posts and you'll find it. I'll take a better pic after I get the mulching and stuff done that I want. In there is an agave, one of the variagated A. americanas, but I don't know which one as I got it from one of those sellers on the side of the road. There's also an O. microdasys and a little sempervivum... I thought the Optunia, with it's little yellow dots would look good against the Agave with it's yellow stripes... both of these plants will get quite big. The sempervivum will spread out to make a ground cover almost, especially if I keep pulling chicks off the others in the yard and planting them in here...

Hope everyone is having a great spring!

just rambling on in the garden...

No pics today... I spent most of today in the garden doing more or less un-photogenic things... started my potato tires... it's a technique I've heard about before, but never got the gumption to try...

You get an old tire. Set it on window screening or landscape cloth, then fill it at least halfway with topsoil. Cut up one seed potato into 3 or 4 sets... then plant it in the tire.

As the potato grows, you keep raising the soil level around the plants by adding straw, lawn and shrub trimmings, etc...(Don't cover the growing tip! But the plant will send out new roots, which grow potatoes all along where it's covered) When the first tire is full... add another tire to the top and keep going... up to three tires total... When the potatoes are ready to harvest, the tires will be full of the potatoes, and all your straw and leaves and such will be compost. If you're using good rich stuff in there, up to a bushel in each mound... I've set two mounds, although the guy at the nursery wasn't happy with me buying 2 seed potatoes, he'll get over it... I'm going to see how it works out. I'll keep you posted...

I also have set out two bales... that's bales of hay. I wanted bales of straw, they're cheeper, but I ended up with hay for free so I'm not complaining. What you do with them is set them on the ground in the yard, with the baling wire going parallel to the ground... that way the cut end of the straw is poking up... then you put some sort of high nitrogen fertilizer on there. Most of the web people say ammonium nitrate... the problem with that is that that's the stuff that they make car bombs out of, so a lot of places won't sell it to someone who isn't a farmer... You can also use any lawn fertilizer, or if you're like me, and know people who have horses, you can put some composted horse manure on top... water it real good, and in a couple of weeks, it will have started composting good and you can plant things in it. You just stick a big knife or spade or something into the top of the bale, and wedge a tomato plant in it...

The advantages are 1) the cutworms and ground dwelling pests can't get up to your plant. 2) The straw really holds water well, and in this part of the country that's a big advantage and 3) you're basically growing in pure compost, and after what you're growing is done, you can till it in to the yard.

I've heard of it for the last few years, but I wasn't sure about it... then a friend of mines 80 year old father told me he remembered his father doing it when he was younger, and "that blasted mater got 7 foot tall, and we were eating canned maters all blasted winter..."

Well, with a hyperbolic recomendation like that, how could I not?

Now, they say on the web that you just sit the thing in the yard, and that's what I did, and that contact with the soil not only helps the composting process, but that the roots of your plant will go right through the bale into the dirt. But, with a little extra water, you can put the bales on concrete, if you are unfortunate enough not to have actual dirt around you.

Another friend of mine is looking into this for another reason... The only section of the yard that she can feasably put a garden in is low, and the clay soil gathers and holds water, making roots rot in the ground. She's thinking that 1 or maybe two years of about 20 bales, and she'll be able to raise some veggies, raise the soil level and get some badly needed organics into that clay... I told her it was worth a shot and it couldn't hurt... we're not talking about an area that raising the soil will interfere with some other drainage...

Anyway, that's been my day.

later...

how to make a tire planter...

When I was younger, in the midwest, a 10 year old could make a bit of spending money by finding abandoned tires by the side of the road, creatively cutting them, and turning them inside out. Of course now, almost all tires are steel belted, which makes turning them inside out a little more challenging, but heres how we did it...


You start by finding an abandoned tire. This is surprisingly easy, despite the fact that when you by new tires, you have to pay a $5.00 recycling fee... (at least in Texas you do) it's not uncommon for some unscrupulous tire sellers to take your $5.00 then dump the tire on the side of the road. There are literally piles of them by some rural roads... but reusing something IS recycling, so here's a viable use...

Take your tire and set it in the sun. This heats and softens the rubber and makes it a bit easier to cut and manipulate. (in the pic, please ignore the dry, dead grass. I obviously do...) The rubber will be warm within 15 minutes, but 30 minutes isn't gonna hurt...

Then, using a strong, sharp knife (one of those Ginzu knives work great) cut out the inside circle on one side... don't even try to cut through that thick, stiff inside rim. Just cut a slit in the side of the tire and cut from there... I'm using the white band as a guide, but if your tire doesn't have one, use a piece of chalk to make a guide line.

You're going to end up with something like this...


Then, all along the cut edge, make straight cuts, about 2 inches apart, down to the start of the tread...

Then turn the tire over, put your knee against the tread on the uncut side, and yank the cut edge over... This really takes two hands, but I was taking pics with one...

after a little bit of wrestling, you'll end up with something like this:

Now, look around and make sure that nobody is looking because this could get a little embarassing. Also, make sure that there are no hard rocks laying around, because there's a pretty good chance that you're gonna fall flat on your derierre... It was impossibe to photograph this, because you're gonna be using both hands and possibly both feet... but what you need to do is stand the tire kinda up on the unflipped end. Get your feet on top of the cut edge to hold it steady and then reach through the center of the tire and take a very firm hold on the inside rim. Then push with your feet and pull with your arms until the thing suddenly pops through... (this is the moment that you're likely to lose your balance,) It may take a little wrestling and repositioning, and I've found that muttering a constant stream of obscenities helps for some reason, but eventually, it'll pop through and you'll end up with something like this...

Now, scrub it down with soapy water to remove all traces of road oil (dishwashing soap works great!) Then get a can of spray paint to coat the outside and at least part of the inside, where the soil won't be and will be visible. I've found that if I paint them with that red-orange primer paint, everybody always stops and asks me where I got that great terra-cotta pot... but green is a classic choice as is white. Those are the most traditional choices, but there's no reason you can't go haywire and be as creative as you want...

Fill with dirt, and flowers of your choice. Or, they're becoming very popular to store garden hoses in, the hoses just coiling up inside like a snake-charmers cobra in it's basket.

Now, if you notice, the interior of this tire was textured with diagonal lines... most tires aren't. But this gives a little more surface texture, and I kind of like it.

placed outside and planted, the tire will last indefinitely, I've had one here for over 10 years. It needs repainted, but otherwise, it's still solid. Another lasted for 12 years, and would still be there if an agave hadn't poked it's way through the side.