by Steve on June 17, 2010
in Blog
After hearing from so many people I knew that it is so much work to start growing your own food, I decided to prove they were wrong. I continually hear “I don’t have the space” or the “Ground is too hard”, ( well it is here in South Central Texas).
So I came up with this experiment after reading of a similar method in Mother Earth News.
In late April, after choosing what I wanted to plant I bought a bag of good compost, and threw it on an unused part of my garden. I then cut most of the top of the bag off, and planted a few watermelon seeds. In no time they began to grow and I thinned them to 2 plants, one on each side of the bag.
As you can see from the picture above, they are doing very well in our Texas heat, and should produce several good watermelons. All in a bag of compoist. The fence in the background is to keep the deer out.
So the next time you think you don’t have the space or there’s too much work, come on back and take a look at this watermelon plant. Later, as they near harvest, I’ll post some more photos to show you what can be done in a simple sack of ….. compost.
by Steve on June 14, 2010
in Blog
Farming is not all about raising produce. Sometimes, I get into a little landscaping too.
I live in the Texas Hill Country, approximately mid way between Austin and San Antonio. It is an area known for soil of a type called caliche which is a very hard limestone based element. As a result, there are a lot of rocks around here. Early settlers and current home owners use them heavily for landscaping walls, lining driveways, etc.
Last year, I planted some Black Eyed Susans in this planter, forgetting that deer are everywhere and will try and sample anything. See post about “Where Bambi Goes, Nothing Grows.
So this year I decided to try something new. Last Fall I heavily mulched the planter with plain old grass clippings. I don’t use chemicals so it is save. I did this for two reasons. First and foremost was an attempt to control the Bermuda Grass we have here that is more like a weed. Dang stugg will take over anything if left alone. You can still see it trying to break in along the base of the planter ( bottom of the picture).
Although it’s hard to see from the photograph, I then planted some various herbs like tarragon, parsley, Basil, Sage, thyme, etc. But I circled them with several Rosemary plants which I have discovered they don’t like due to the aroma. Hopefully the Rosemary will camouflage the other herbs I wanted to try this technique after discussing it with one of our local Master Gardeners who thought it should work.
The green spots around the bottom of the windmill are the various herb plants I am trying.
We’ll see if the Master Gardener was right
