November Garden Hoe Workday

Saturday found us "hoeing" around at Anna's. Before/After pix will be posted soon...

Anna had recruited the help of her sisters, who must love her a LOT to have driven a good hour, to help her prepare the delicious breakfast and lunch we had. We had a yummy breakfast casserole (from Naomi's recipes), sausage wraps and donuts that Nancy brought from Round Rock donuts-fried in LARD-which we discussed was a wonderful thing, coffee and mimosas. Lunch was a totally yummy chicken pasta salad and fruit salad, of which I think we all had seconds.

After a little visiting, we went to work. There were two projects we planned to attack that day. The first was trimming back the ivy on one of the beds in front. Beautiful as it looks, that stuff is a pain in the you know what. We got it whacked back though, hopefully to a nice size, and put what rocks we had available around for a border. At one point, the ivy tried to get back at us for whacking it all up and tried to "eat" Nancy. Unfortunately, she escaped before I could get a pix.

The second project was supposed to be to just extend the depth of Anna's veggie garden. One thing about us, no matter what we initially THINK we want to do, it ALWAYS ends up being a bigger project. Anna's veggie garden was no exception. Why just extend it a few feet when we could make it HUGE? After moving the compost pile back and pulling expired plants, Naomi started tilling. Rock removal and raking followed hot on her heals. What resulted was a GORGEOUS vegetable bed of fabulous dirt (I was really tempted to make a dirt angel in it it was such heavenly soil) that is going to result in lots of beautiful produce. I can't wait to post the pix...

In the meantime, here are a few snapshots of the fun we have during our work days...

"We could put a pond right here!" Always thinking of yet more projects that can be done, Naomi pointed out that Anna's rock garden area that she and hubby have been stumped about what to do with, could be turned into a water feature area. Anna's hubby noted that he'd prefer it be turned into a putting green. We'll see which idea comes to fruition.

"FIRE! FIRE!" Unable to unwind the last of the twine and grass that had become one with the tiller axle, and thereby bogging it down, we resorted to FIRE! Heather is carefully burning the grass and junk hoping not to ignite anything else. It worked great and the fire department didn't have to come over.



Goofin' around... Hoe Nancy taking a brief break from all the hard work.




Garden Hoes... I don't know why we never take a picture BEFORE we dive in and get nasty, but here we are. (L to R) Anna, Nancy, Naomi, & Heather. Nickie was unable to attend.

Like We NEED More Plants

Last night, Naomi and I attended the Native Plants Society of Texas-Austin Area Chapter plant swap in Georgetown. The LAST thing we need right now (especially with winter quickly approaching) is more plants that we need to get into the ground. That said, we're gardening freaks and couldn't resist.

We both got many wonderful plants to add to our own landscapes and enjoyed visiting with the NPSOT members as well. Some of the goodies I personally managed to score include: carolina jasmine, wild onion, snake herb, turk's cap, spiderwort, pipevine, wild foxglove, lindheimer's senna, false guara, salvia coccinea, purple coneflower, and little bluestem grass. Yippee!

It was loads of fun and I'm so thrilled I got to attend. Even if I hadn't gotten all the wonderful plants I did, I learned some things about native plants of Texas. Thanks, Naomi for letting me know about it! --Hoe Heather

Will It Rain or Do I Water?

THAT is the question. My poor pond garden needs watering badly (cause I've been forgetting) BUT the weather person said we've got rain in the forecast so I'm HOPING that the Lord will feel bad for my poor unwatered plants and send some rain to us...FAST.

This is the time of year where I really want to be outside, as Naomi mentioned in an earlier post, playing in the dirt, because the weather is SO beautiful. Unfortunately, there isn't really any planting I can do right now, that I know of, since ol' man winter is on his way. Now is the time to begin buckling down instead of germinating seeds and that is the complete opposite of what I want to do. In fact, the urge to make things grow is even greater since my having joined another group where I've been trading for some WONDERFUL seeds and plants. I am so excited about some of these that I am itching to go plant them. That excitement is going to make for a long winter, I fear.

Anyway, back to the rain... here's crossing my fingers that the weather person was right. If not, I have GOT to remember to water my poor plants later today. -Hoe Heather