Flowers

A few pretty photos of the flowers growing in our yard right now.  I'm no photographer but our point and shoot does pretty well when it's on the "flower" setting.  Enjoy!

Ms. Piggy in the Garden

Yes, we really do have a pig’s head buried in the garden.  You see, Captain Y is a hunter and sometimes hunters like to keep trophies.  Captain Y likes to keep the skulls of his conquests for decor at the hunting cabin.  The easiest way to clean up the bones is to bury them in the ground and let nature take its course.  We’ve tried burying skulls in different places in the yard, put cinder blocks on top of them, etc but Sasha always finds them, digs them up and tries to eat them.  Yuck!  And they smell gross!  Since our garden is fenced (to keep the rabbits from helping themselves to our veggies) Captain Y started burying the heads in there.  It’s not a big deal with deer since their season is in the fall after our veggies are done for the year but this is our first spring animal, thus our special garden arrangement. 

Ms. Piggy is Captain Y’s first feral hog.  Feral hogs are a nuisance species here in Texas (and a lot of other states) they rip up fences and plants and wallow wherever they want causing millions of dollars of property damage every year.  They reproduce a lot (a sow can have two litters a year with over a dozen piglets each time!) so there very limited hunting restrictions and no season. Feral hogs don’t look like Babe or Wilber; they are mean looking with scraggily hair and big teeth.  Here is Ms. Piggy in all of her glory.  Yum ;-) 

Garden

There is no denying that spring has hit Southeast Texas and since I was officially on spring break yesterday we spent the afternoon working on the yard and the garden.  The front flower bed has been weeded and mulched.  It doesn't look super great right now since we had a pretty hard winter (for down here) and had to chop back all of the shrubs.  But the good news is they are all coming back!

Then it was time to take on the vegetables.  After a trip to the local garden center for plants we decided to try something new laid brown paper down over the bare soil to combat weeds.  I don't know how this will turn out but I've read about it several places and they all claim it works, so we will just have to wait and see.  We laid out the plants to check spacing and then just went for it, and stuck them in the ground. 

Here are the details of our lay out: 

I found a special bonus, cilantro growing in the yard!  Captain Y was going to mow the grass, OK fine the weeds, yesterday but the battery in the mower needed charged so it didn't happen.  This morning I went outside to check on things and noticed some of the "weeds" I had over looked were very familiar.  I crushed a leaf and took a whiff and then a taste, yup it's cilantro.  We planted some last year, it bolted when it got hot and we let it go to seed.  Apparently the seeds spread into the yard and were happy to grow in our warm spring soil.  I transplanted a few into the garden so they won't get mowed and we can use it to make yummy ceviche when snapper season rolls around. 

Finally, a photo of the real thing.  All of the plants look so small right now but I know they will get big fast.  I can almost taste the juicy red tomatoes, yum! 

Framed: March

I thought about a St. Patrick's Day print for March but when I saw this one I knew it was the right choice, especially since the first day of spring is this Saturday.  Flowers, caterpillars and butterflies, love it! 

Printable from One Pretty Thing. 

How does your garden grow?

It’s March and here in south Texas that means it’s time to start the garden!  We got busy (or lazy) last fall and didn’t do a very good job of taking care of the garden bed, in fact there were still a few dead plants and a really old bell pepper hanging out in there.  Not to mention Captain Y’s addition.  This is what happens when you let Captain Y decided what to plant in the garden.  He thinks he can grow his own trophy white tail.  I don’t think it’s going to work out the way he planned, ha, ha. 

So, after a good clean out it’s time to start thinking about getting some pants and seeds in the ground.  We have a pretty small garden bed (4’x16’) but we still manage to fit in a lot.  In the past we have grown tomatoes (our cherries did really well last year), bell peppers, hot peppers, lettuce, green beans, cucumbers, eggplant, basil, chives and tomatillos.  We do our best to plant according to the advice of local experts here is the schedule they suggest. 

Early March – tomatoes, onions, lettuce

Late March – cucumbers (from seed), bell peppers, squash, beans (from seed), watermelon

March – thyme, oregano, sunflowers

April – basil, eggplant, sweet potatoes

We don’t always manage to make these dates but we do try.  So far, they have worked pretty well for us.  Here's what the garden looks like now.  Stay tuned for photos  once we get some plants in the ground and more importantly when things start producing!