Diana C. Kirby, Author at Diana's Designs Austin

A fresh start …

This collection was waiting for me on Saturday morning. Can you hear them? They were saying: “Plant us, plant us!”
So, I put on my garden gloves and grabbed my shovel and my tub trug and dug in.
My DH brought around 8 bags of compost so I could amend the beds. After being bug-infested and fried for 50 days over 100 this summer, I figured that they needed a little a little perking up.
Here’s what went in:

Tomatoes — Sunmaster, Viva Italia, Bush Celebrity, Big Beef, Sweet 100 cherry, Purple Cherokee
Canteloupe — from my garden blogging friend, Meredith, at Great Stems
Jalapeno peppers and sweet red bell peppers
Straight-neck and zucchini squash
And some marigolds around the tomatoes (in the hopes of keeping away BUGS! Ha!)

And then I crafted this fancy-schmancy shade cover for the tomatoes because it is just so darn hot that new transplants will get too stressed without it. I covered a trellis with shade cloth and then tied strings around it all, and voila!

Today we hit 51 days over 100 degrees, surpassing last year’s shocking record. With 6 weeks of Austin summer left to go, we are likely to have the hottest summer ever … ever. Sigh. But I am going to try for that Fall garden in spite of it.

(I am having visions of cool season crops…but I can’t even think about them yet.)

Are you thinking about a Fall garden? Or are you eating yummy summer tomatoes? Think you can fed ex me some to replace all the ones I had to rip out?!

Okay, guess I will have to go to the farmer’s market next Saturday.

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:41-06:00August 10th, 2009|Blog, canteloupe, fall garden, fall tomatoes, peppers, Sharing Nature's Garden, squash|0 Comments

Saying goodbye …

Say goodbye.

Goodbye to the 10-foot tall tomato plants.
Goodbye to the 6 varieties of Heirloom tomatoes grown from seed, lovingly raised in the greenhouse last winter.
Goodbye to the lush plants around the tomatoes, including giant okra, parsley, jalapeno peppers and red bell peppers.
Goodbye to my towering jungle.
All because of HIM! And his hundreds and hundreds of cousins and uncles and nephews and babies.

Everywhere.

And I mean everywhere.

So one of my “guys” came over yesterday and ripped the guts out of my whole garden. And me, for that matter. It was hard to watch.
So, with the truck full of my formerly beautiful plants, he drove off with what was the promise of my fall tomato crop — up until a week ago.

And I was left to squash and squeeze and stomp on literally 150 of those #$%^&*#&* bugs — just on the ground! And climbing on the empty tomato cages. I killed about 25 more today. I will check again tomorrow, but I think they are all gone or dead.

There are only 2 things left in the garden — the strawberries and the basil, which weren’t infested and don’t seem to have drawn them. My fingers are crossed for them. But I am diligently checking them several times a day.

My goal: To eradicate the *&$#@%*&# bugs so that I can plant new teeny tiny tomato plants this weekend for a fall crop. We are blessed with two seasons here and the time to plant is NOW. I figure if a few bugs show back up, I can handle killing them on a few couple inch-high plants! The jungle, not so much.

I WAS planning on an amazing crop from my huge existing plants. (Did I mention that? sigh.)

Ok — I am not over it. But it’s gone. So, now I am making a list:

some compost
some new mulch
a few new marigolds (fat lot of good THEY did keeping the bad bugs out!)

Tomorrow is a new day.

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:42:42-05:00August 3rd, 2009|Blog, fall tomatoes, Sharing Nature's Garden, tomato leaf footed bug, tomatoes, vegetable garden|0 Comments

Help – Calling all Veggie gardeners…

Help. Please.

I have 7 mature, healthy tomato plants…

Well, some of them are healthy. But one bed – 4 plants up to 10 feet tall and amazing — is infested with leaf footed bugs. I have sprayed insecticidal soap and Neem oil on them about 3 times. I have killed a bunch of them.

This morning I have spent HOURS cutting away the dead foliage and squashing bugs by hand and spraying and stomping on them. I am on a rampage.

But I am afraid I cannot possibly get them all … and I don’t think the Neem really stops their growth.

I am considering cutting them back by 1/2, trying to keep attacking them for about a week, and then, if they are still everywhere – I will rip (GASP) them out, and plant new ones. The time to plant fall tomatoes in Central Texas is right now, so I can’t wait too long.

Sad thing is these are my babies grown from see in the greenhouse and they have many blooms and it’s gonna make me cry to pull them out.

Have you got a leaf footed bug killing secret weapon?

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:31-05:00August 1st, 2009|Blog, Sharing Nature's Garden, tomaotes, tomato leaf footed bug|0 Comments

After the rain…

After our wonderful .34 inches of rain yesterday, I went outside to look at the wet ground and to bask in the humidity.

And I stepped into an amazing amber glow of light as the sun was setting, so I rushed in to get my camera.
I didn’t do it justice, especially with the little point and shoot, but you get the idea.
And this morning, I don’t have to water for 45 minutes.

Yeah!

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:31-05:00July 31st, 2009|Blog, Sharing Nature's Garden, sky|0 Comments

No chicken little here!

The sky is falling, the sky is falling…
A cool wind blew through just a few minutes ago and then drops of water began falling from the sky.

Ahhhh….

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:44:31-05:00July 30th, 2009|Blog, drought, rain, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

Going to seeds (in a handbasket!)

While trying to ignore the many crispy-fried-plants in my garden, I started looking for other things going on.

And lo and behold, many of my plants and trees are going to seed today.

I didn’t capture them all, but some of them are just so interesting to look at.

And they are as diverse as the plants from which they come.

The Pride of Barbados seed pod is thin and delicate, just like the shrub.

It almost looks like a snow pea pod, but a little longer.

The Esperanza pod is long and shiny and thin. It almost looks like it’s covered in lime-green wax.
This hideous looking pod is from the stunningly beautiful Moy Grande Hibiscus with giant hot-pink blooms that I posted about several weeks ago here.

I have hundreds of seeds coming on, so if you’d like me to send you some, please comment with your email and I’d be happy to write to you and get your info to share them. She was amazingly prolific this year, and I see that there is another bloom about to open tomorrow. She’s like the Energizer bunny!
This spiky little guy is from my white Datura, which reseeds (by the gazillion) every spring. The plant is as tough as the seed pod looks.
These fat, woody and fuzzy pods are from the Texas Mountain Laurel, which is covered in seeds right now. Sadly, they are S-L-O-W growers, and if you want to start one from seed, you’d better not be counting on any shade from it for several decades!
And this is one of my very favorite books. If you have kids or grand kids, this is a delightfully written and beautifully illustrated book about the life cycle of plants and the many different kinds of seeds. The book IDs many seeds and plants and Kallie and I just love it. Learning about the garden is just a normal part of our outdoor life, and while we talk about seeds as we see them, this book bring it all to life for kids. If you can’t read that small type, the author is Diana Hutts Aston and the illustrator is Sylvia Long. By the way – those giant pods at the top of the book cover are Mountain Laurel pods with the little red seeds inside and a little hint of Laurel heavenly-grape bloom peeking in from the top.