Tomato Beavers

What's a tomato beaver you ask?  It's a mysterious and seldom seen creature.  It comes in the dead of night when you least expect it and fells tomato plants like a lumberjack downs a towering pine.  Of course, I'm joking.  There's really no such thing as a tomato beaver, but my poor tomato was gnawed on by something.

The unfortunate victim was a Celebrity tomato cut down in it's prime.  The plant was perfectly healthy when I checked on it yesterday.  It was as big as it's sister plant, Early Goliath, pictured below.

So, what would do this kind of damage?  The most likely culprit is a cutworm.  I have seen more cutworms in the garden this year than usual.  The cutworms I generally see are a smooth worm of about an inch or more.  They are usually dark colored, with long stripes traveling the length of their bodies.  When you hold a cutworm in your hand, they naturally curl themselves up.

Cutworms normally attack smaller seedlings with tender stems.  I really thought my tomatoes were large enough to be past the stage when cutworm damage would occur.  The stems on my plants are starting to get woody and the plants are already setting fruit.  I guess when you're a hungry cutworm, you'll take what you can get.  Here are some pictures of some of my first tomatoes.

I searched the soil surrounding the plant looking for the cutworm without any luck.  While searching the remainder of the bed I did find another cutworm, but I'm pretty sure it was too small to be the worm the killed my tomato.  Still, it's a cutworm, so it was immediately sentenced to death by chicken. 

To protect my tomatoes tonight, I wrapped the bottom of the tomato stems with foil.  This is just a temporary measure.  Hopefully, the foil will provide enough protection to save the plants from further damage.  

As for the dead plant, well, I guess tomorrow I'll be visiting my local nursery for a replacement.

A Destination for Inspiration

The Outdoor Marketplace in Bastrop, Texas is enjoying their grand opening weekend March 23-25.  They are open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., so as soon as my workday ended, I headed over to check them out.

I was immediately greeted by their wonderful staff and introduced to one of the owners, Vicki Davis.  She and her husband, Tuffy, have been in the landscape design business for 14 years.  When they were discussing plans to layout a demonstration storefront to showcase their pools, ponds, and outdoor kitchens, they had an epiphany.  Why not create a full service outdoor super store.  Why not indeed?  This place is awesome!

The Outdoor Marketplace showcases the Davis' business, TD Landscape Design, which offers services including pool installation, putting greens, fencing, outdoor kitchens and lots more.  

The front entrance contains a resort-like swimming pool viewed from an arbor adorned walkway.   The pool is complete with a hot tub, wade in entry, waterfalls and spillways with gorgeous rock work covering every surface.  

Looking toward the greenhouse side of the marketplace the opened roof design of the greenhouse immediately caught my eye.  Bye, bye pool.  I want to see some plants.

The greenhouse contains plenty of tropical plants and annual color, but I was immediately drawn to their indoor demonstration veggie garden.  Very cool.  The plants are already covered with peppers and tomatoes.  My husband wasn't convinced they were real, but after a closer inspection, he deemed them authentic.

Walking toward the back of the Outdoor Marketplace property, I was completely in awe.  This place is huge!  I ran into an old friend, now an Outdoor Marketplace employee, she told me the back of the property slopes down to a large retention pond designed to catch water run off.  The water from the pond is used to water the plants.  What a great idea.

I think I'll be going back for one of these Cleome.  I've never grown Cleome, but the tag said the plant is drought tolerant and likes full sun.  Sounds good to me, plus I'm a sucker for purple.

From the plant yard looking back, there are plenty of eye catching fountains, bird baths, and a demonstration pond.  There's interesting pottery and plants everywhere you look along the way, plus back at the main building you'll find a variety of pond fish including koi and shubunkin, pond filters, pumps, and other pond supplies. 

Back inside, my camera was snapping overtime.  There's so much to take in.  Here's a sampling of some of the Outdoor Marketplace wares beginning with this very interesting wine bottle chandelier followed by gazing balls, hats, plant markers, and outdoor furniture.

I was drooling over the outdoor kitchens especially when I saw the built in wine fridge.  Just fabulous.

Are you in the market for a putting green?  I am.  I have just the spot for this beauty, but I'd like a sand trap to go with mine.  If I replaced my last little bit of grass with a putting green, I'd never have to mow again. Wouldn't that be nice?

The demonstration gardens at the Outdoor Marketplace are full of native and adapted plants.  You can tell the plantings are new, but I bet in a few short months, they'll be filling in nicely.

I was snapping pictures right up until the end.  I took this one just as I was leaving, but I can guarantee you one thing:  I'll be back for my next inspiration fix real soon.

Neighborhood Wildflower Walk

Lately my husband and I have been skipping the gym in favor of our new exercise program. We're calling it the "Walk N Weed".  Two miles around our neighborhood, followed by 1 hour in the yard weeding or doing other needed garden tasks.

Tonight on our walk I noticed the wildflowers looked particularly spectacular, so I made a quick dash home for my camera.  When I look at scenes like these, I wish I could paint.  

This field looks like it is predominately Indian Paintbrush until you look closer and see the Wine Cup, Pink Evening Primrose, and Spiderwort.

At home, I'm forever pulling out Wild Onions. The white flowers are pretty, but the plants pop up everywhere driving me crazy.  Here in this curbside setting, they work with these Bluebonnets and Spiderwort.

Here's an interesting tidbit about Bluebonnets that you may not know.  Bluebonnets that have not been pollinated have a white center.  After pollination the center turns red signally bees to move on to a different flower.  See if you can pick out the red and white centers in the closeups below.

There are so many beautiful wildflowers, but here's one of my top 10.  I've always known it by the common name, False Indigo, Baptisia bracteata var. leucophaea.  I've also heard it called Ground Wisteria, which is probably due to the clusters of flowers which hang on the plant pulling it downward.  Most of these plants have finished blooming, but I found a few stragglers to share with you.

Cream False Indigo is a member of the pea family.  The plants are well-rounded and bushy, measuring about 1-2 feet tall.  The bumble bees love them and I do too.

Veggie Garden Transition

Space is my greatest challenge when transitioning from the fall/winter to the spring/summer veggie garden. Many of the veggies I planted in the fall are still productive and spring plantings of onions and potatoes won't be harvested until May.  The majority of my garden space is still in use, so it's time for the hard choices of what goes and what stays.

I need space for the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and green beans that I want to plant, so I need to take a hard look at the best candidates for removal.  While I find some space and prepare the garden beds, tomato, pepper and basil transplants wait in 1 gallon pots in the greenhouse.

Some removal decisions are easy.  The broccoli, which started flowering when temperatures warmed up, was bee food and then chicken food.  I cut down the plants one by one and fed them to the girls who really seemed to enjoy them.

I have 4 heads of cabbage left, 2 red and 2 green.  I grew extra cabbage for the chickens, because they love it so much.  When one of the green cabbage heads split, it was easy to decide, which one was going to the girls.  The remaining head of green cabbage and the 2 red will go into the fridge assuming I can find space.

These English peas will stay, but some surprise 'wormy' visitors have taken over my lettuce.  I could treat for caterpillars with BT, but in this heat, it won't be long before the lettuce bolts and gets bitter.  It's probably best to give it to the chickens.  Wow, I'm sensing a trend here.  Those chickens are going to be eating good.

I really hate to say goodbye to this Salad Bowl leaf lettuce.  The greens have been some of the most tender lettuces I can remember.  

I can definitely harvest the last of the spinach, beets and radishes.  The beets will make a nice side dish and the spinach and radishes will go into salads. 

The kale is a bit of dilemma.  Most of it looks pretty good, except this one plant that has decided to bolt.  I guess I'll be making a lot of kale chips.

The artichokes are definitely staying.  I planted these back in November and there are already 4 baby artichokes and hopefully lots more to come.

Photo from November 2011

 

Photo from March 2012 

  

Baby Artichoke Developing

The potatoes, which were planted in late January, will stay in the garden until they are harvested in May.  The plants just received their first dirting.  As the plants grow up, more dirt will be place around the stems.

Potatoes Sprouting



Dirted Potatoes

So, this is what I'm working with.  My vegetable plot consists of 12 raised beds measuring 3' X 12' each. There are 6 beds on the left and 6 beds on the right separated by a wide isle.

On the left half of the garden, working from the front of the photo below, the freshly dirted potatoes will stay, but the bed containing the Brussels Sprouts will get cleared out.  The next bed containing the broccoli has already been cleaned out.  Behind the broccoli is the garlic, which will stay, followed by the cabbage, which will get cleared out.  Finally, way in the back, the peas will stay, but the lettuce will get cleared out.

On the right half of the garden, another bed of potatoes, is not quite visible at the front of the photo.  I planted one bed with white potatoes and the other with red.  The primary rutabaga bed at the front of the photo is looking pretty picked over.  Just 6 more rutabaga left and I can clear this bed out.  Behind the rutabaga, a bed containing a mix of beets, spinach and radishes will go.  The next bed contains onions, followed by a bed containing my beautiful kale and more rutabaga.  I'll try to keep these in place for as long as possible.  The final bed in the back contains the artichokes, which will stay.

In August, when the garden is fairly empty, filling the beds with tasty cabbages and rutabagas is a no brainer.  But, in March, when many of the winter plants are still producing, it's tough to decide what goes and what stays.  Of course, the ultimate solution is to expand, and you can bet, I'm already trying to figure that one out.