October 2007 Archives

Here's one of the pretty gourds that grew from the vine.  I love its organic curves - it seems very feminine to me.


























And here is the round gourd.  I'm waiting to see how they grow and dry, to decide whether I can do anything crafty with them for holiday presents.

Next time I plant these, I'll take the pollination into my own hands, as it were, and see if I can get more prolific results.





















The peanuts I planted, before we even moved into our house, have bloomed all summer as well.  Peanuts make these cute little yellow legume flowers, which then turn into pegs, which burrow into the soil and grow the pods of peanuts we recognize.  Though I mixed compost in to the soil before planting, it still became hard-packed clay very quickly.  The peanuts seem to be doing alright regardless; I dug up one of the outlier plants last week, to find several smallish pods in the dirt.  I left the others in to grow a little longer.  They should be done in another few weeks.






The cucumber vine is producing lots of spiky little fruit now, each preceded by one of these yellow squash flowers.  I think this may have been a self-pollinating variety, as it never seemed to have the same difficulty every other squash or melon vine in my garden had with bearing fruit after blossoming.










And finally, this African basil is planted near my fall tomato plant, to try to protect it from the bugs that might attack it.  (Judging by the progress of my fall tomato plant, it'll freeze before it bears fruit, so this might not matter.)

I took a cutting of my mom's African basil, which was growing very prolifically in her garden.  I just stuck it in plain tap water, came back a week later, and it had produced a whole plant's worth of roots.  That's some easy propagation.

The leaves are fairly mild and a bit minty, as basil goes; the books recommend just using it for its pretty cut flowers and growing Italian basil for cooking with.















This dainty white flower is from another legume: my pole beans.  They vine up the fence like the cucumber and decorative gourds do.  Eventually, I hope to rid the fence of the thick jasmine vines that grew all over it when we bought the house, and to replace them with vegetables and a few vining flowers.

Our green beans have had fair production, though I only tend to get a dozen at a time.  Next year: more green beans.

















Outside the vegetable garden, plenty of things are blooming, as well.  Here are some highlights:


I got my hyacinth beans from my mom and planted them mid-summer, which was likely too late.  In my mom's yard, they grow up a utility pole, some twenty or thirty feet into the air.  In my garden, they lack the vertical drive, and rather sprawl over the lawn in places.  I still think they're beautiful.  Their beans are also beautiful.

I'll let them reseed and see if I can get them looking more ambitious next year.





















Bat-faced cuphea are gaudy, to be sure, but its bright flowers attract bees and butterflies.  I've pretty well ignored this plant since I put it into the ground, but it seems to be doing well on its own, in the part shade beneath our awning.  Slowly, I'm getting other things planted in that bed so that it doesn't look so lonely out there.









This trailing(?) geranium has a lovely habit, and I have her planted in a big frog-shaped pot on my back patio, from which she spills out in an ocean of blooms.  Quite lovely, and easy to grow, which is good, because I claim no green thumb.























This beautiful white oxalis grows happily in the shade on the north side of our back yard.  Our neighbor's giant ash tree shades that side pretty completely, so the previous owners of our home planted a tropical little bed over there, with a giant philodendron and this little oxalis. 

I transplanted some wood sorrel, which is a wild-growing relative, from my previous garden and into this bed.  Apparently wood sorrel is a weed, but I maintain that it just needs better public relations.  It's a lovely little plant, though it doesn't bloom in the heat of summer.  It should be coming back out again soon.
















In the front yard, our pomegranate tree is approaching the end of its fruiting, but it still has a few late-blooming blossoms.  I need to figure out how I can use pomegranates, besides just letting them screen my house from the busy street.










These ornamental peppers were a housewarming gift from a friend.  After they had been in the ground for three days, I was fairly sure I'd killed them already - a speed record even for me.  But they've proved me wrong, recovering and growing well in my yard, in the understory of a boring little shrub in front of my house.

I love the color and shapes of ornamental peppers.  They're at least as beautiful as most flowers.






 

My tiny American beauty berry plant isn't large enough for the birds to have noticed it, but it's still making beautiful purple berries this fall.  I can't wait for it to grow next year and become more respectable-looking.























Last, but certainly not least for this entry are my bulbines, which grow in a sunny bed along our walkway in the front yard.  These are some of my favorite flowers, with their beautiful, delicate blooms, their soft succulent stems, and their (generally) polite growing habits.  I also love the combination of orange and yellow in the blossom; I much prefer these to the all-yellow variety.

I interplanted some of the oxblood lilies that MSS of Zanthan Gardens so kindly gave me, and I think their brilliant crimson blooms will look gorgeous with the orange and yellow of the bulbines.  Next fall will be beautiful.

Also blooming in my garden, but not pictured, are a few varieties of salvia, a tiny lantana plant, Texas sage, red yucca, and unidentified climbing varieties of roses, which have made their way up into the neighbors' yaupon tree.

It was to my great benefit that the previous owners of our new home were gardeners themselves.  They fenced in a vegetable garden of their own, did a fair bit of landscaping, and left the garden in good shape when they moved.  I don't always agree with their choices in plants, but I've got a great canvas to start with.