vegetable garden

Don’t chew, I surrender!

I surrender. Sigh. After planting lots of little eye candy last week, I got up and went outside to survey Saturday morning. Lo and behold, several of my plants were strewn about the driveway and the beds. Clearly, someone, or several someones, came through for a tasting sampler and found some of them unpalatable! If they didn’t like them, I wishe they’d at least figure that out first, or put them back!

I was able to shove most of those back into their holes and water them. Unfortunately, there were also quite a few plants that were obviously tasty, because they were munched on. They ate all the blooms of Kallie’s Cyclamen, and munched on shrubs and annuals. I know the deer tolerance for most of the perennials and shrubs, but there are just too many annuals to keep track of. And, let’s face it, when I’m standing in the nursery oogling some cute new plant, I know I’m not going to rush home to look it up and come back to buy it. I want it NOW!

So after the deer had a nice salad from my beds Friday night, Saturday morning I went out with strips of laundry dryer sheets to tie around the plants I was most worried about. (They are very scent-sensitive and I’ve some success with it in the past to keep the deer out of the bird feeders.)

Mostly eaten.

Spared — and now with a dryer sheet scarf!
Munched on — sporting a lovely new scarf.

Here are a few bulbs from the experimental ones I planted last month! They are actually coming up now – I can’t believe it. I think these are daffodils or irises. I guess they will surprise me, or I can go back and search my posts.
These are two amaryllis that were eaten last year and managed to survive to grow another season. I guess I’d better chicken wire them until they’ve bloomed!
Here’s another little daffodil that sprouted up and surprised me — I thought these were hyacinths when they first peeked up!
Here is my new vegetable bed — the little one on the left. I just thought I’d squeeze one more in there.
These are the two cleaned-up beds — new garden soil inside and with weed block and thick mulch in the pathways instead of the zoysia grass that kept invading the gardens. Between that and the new metal edging, I’m hoping to keep most of the grass at bay. I swear, last summer it looked like a LAWN in my veggie gardens at one point! Cross your fingers for me.

The gate has been promised tomorrow. And it’s supposed to be 84f — unbelieveable. I’m postponing my teacher conference meeting until Tuesday when the cold front comes through and we drop to 63f 😉

Bloom Day…sort of!


Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to share what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of the month and bloggers around the world join in this sense of community to appreciate each others’ work and species and climate.

There are just a few things blooming in my garden on this Bloom Day. This geranium is just the most delicious color of salmon that I had to have it. It’s another of today’s nursery purchases, along with a statue and a Japanese maple (no blooms there – just sticks!)

These little phlox love the cooler weather. (I can barely keep them alive in the heat of August), so they’re happy now.
Even in our temperate Texas climate, most things in my garden are starting to sprout up, but haven’t sported buds or blooms yet.
Here is my partially completed fence! We still need to put a gate on and then I’ll put an arbor in front of the gate.

While they were hammering away, I was fantasizing about little brackets for hanging plants and garden decor, finials for the tops of the posts, and other decorative touches! I guess a fence isn’t just a fence to me.
And this is my new-found friend. I fell in love with her while doing some Spring Fling business at a fabulous local nursery, the Great Outdoors, (they have a Blog, too) and just couldn’t walk away from her. She’s intruiging, and I knew I had the perfect focal point spot for her at the end of a river rock pathway. So, she’s mine, now. I want to name her; still mulling over options — something classic, yet unimposing, warm and inviting — any suggestions for naming my new garden friend?

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