Birthday Flowers from Wortham

Thought you might like to see how pretty my birthday flowers are!

Herbs in Winter: Lavender, Thyme, Oregano

Here are pictures of the lavender, thyme, and oregano I planted last year.  I think they started out as 4" pots.  Not having grown them before, I didn't know if they'd overwinter, but they have and they've also provided good flavor through the winter months!

Lavender in the back and thyme to the front left (on the right is Blue Rug Juniper - not for cooking!) with a natural mulch of leaves.

I've taken a sprig of the lavender and put it in a vase where it lasted for weeks in the house.  Outdoors, it's not quite as bushy as it is during the warmer months, but it's healthy.  The thyme is still flavorful even though it gets a slight purply winter color.  Just strip off the leaves with your finger nail and throw into any dish for awsome flavor!

Lavender close up.

Oregano (it's in there!) grows close to the ground and spreads like a ground cover.

Oregano does die back some in the winter, but there's still enough to enjoy and survive until spring.

There's no need to water these herbs much in the winter as they are native to areas with poor, dry soils.  And these three are not invasive (like mint or basil which need to be planted in a confined space) so they can be used as greenery in your landscape.

Tomato Seedlings Update

The tomato seeds I planted in the large Jiffy pellets took about ten days to start sprouting.  I've been moving them within a day or two of sprouting into plastic cups just because the large peat pellets are too tall to grow much in the plastic sprouting house.

On the other hand, none of my peppers have sprouted so far, and I planted them on 2/11 - so three weeks ago.  They really need 70 to 80 degree temperatures to sprout (and it's been colder than that in the house), so I've tried resting them on a heating pad (lowest setting) and a towel to try to warm them up.  If that doesn't work and they've rotted, I'll re-plant in a couple of weeks.

I will actually plant these in soil eventually, but for now it's just a pellet in a cup because I haven't gotten around to getting out the garden mix!

My heating pad experiment.

Herbs in Winter: Parsley

Last year was the first time I grew parsley.  It is super easy to grow, but it takes a long time to germinate!  Direct seed in the spring, and then you'll have to sit back and wait three weeks or so before you'll see anything.  Here are both the Flat Leaf Italian and the Curly Leaf varieties I grew.

The more flavorful Flat Leaf Italian Parsley is generally preferred for cooking.

Up close, the Flat Leaf Italian Parsley looks similar to cilantro.  In fact, a few years ago, I accidentally bought a bunch at the store having mistaken it for cilantro and threw it in a batch of homemade salsa.  Oops - no chips and salsa at the Oscar party that year!

Here's the curly leaf parsly which is traditionally used as a garnish but can also be used in cooking.  Both varieties are small and clumpy right now because they are beginning to flush from the base.  Parsley is supposed to bloom the second year, so I plan to leave them in the ground to see what they do, but I'll also sow some new seed since herbs tend to produce less once they start blooming.

Close up of the curly leaf parsley, which I have never tried in salsa!

Don't feeling like trucking it out to the garden every day in the cold?  Just stick a few cuttings in water, and they'll keep for several days.

Cook up an omlet in your cast iron pan and top it with some fresh parsley... dee-lish!!

Herbs in Winter: Rosemary

Rosemary is a great all-season herb for West Texas - use it in the landscape and in the kitchen all year round!

Rosemary stays green all winter which provides a welcome burst of green during the cold, brown months.  As such, it also provides a burst of fresh flavor in the kitchen!  Dice it up for cooking, or snip several longer woody branches from a mature plant to use as flavorful skewers for kabobs.

While tolerant of poor soils, rosemary in not tolerant of over-watering.  I don't usually water my front landscape at all in the winter - whatever runs off the front of the house is enough.  As you know, we've had a ton of winter preciptation this year, and here you can see the die back that results when rosemary gets wet feet.  This is the view when walking out my front door right now - beautiful, isn't it?  Between runoff from the roof and a slope in the sidewalk that retains water, this rosemary's not completely happy!

Here's the same bush from the front which doesn't look so bad.

Rosemary gets a slight burgundy winter color at the tips, but it doesn't affect the overall look of the plant much.  You'll also notice that the plant gets a slight gray-green color to it in winter and turns a brighter green with warmer weather.

Here's another stand of rosemary about twenty feet away which looks a little better.  I planted this about four or five years ago from three quart-size plants I bought at the garden center.  You can see that the they've all grown together to form one large planting.  That's a crape myrtle in the foreground and Cabaret Miscanthus grass in the back which is really pretty in the summer.  (Ornamental grasses can be cut back in the winter if you prefer, but I usually leave mine until they start to flush again in the spring.)

Worth Visits the Alamo!

But will he remember it?  Doubtful, but I will...

Want to see the oldest known photographic image of the Alamo, taken in 1849?

The famous "camel's back" arch was not original to the structure.

Stone walls and arches that surround the site were erected in the 1920's.

Splash and make a wish!

Archetectural detail on the front facade.

Worth enjoys an ice pop outside the gift shop.

Checking out the big guns...

Side view from inside the Convento Courtyard.

From Remember the Alamo by Patrick Cox, Ph.D

"The eighteenth century Franciscan chapel survived more than a century of hurricanes, floods, epidemics, hostile Indians and, finally, secularization and distribution of the mission's assets to the local community. In the early 1840's, bats and owls inhabited the former mission and battlefield. The ruins also attracted the young boys of that era who played among its crumbling walls. The U. S. Army probably saved the abandoned structure when it turned the place of worship into a quartermaster storage building in 1846. (It's hard to fathom that hay and hardtack were housed in the same rooms that witnessed Christian rituals and bloody combat). "

How true...

Davy Crockett Meets Freddy Krueger

My sweet nephew Wortham got to take his first trip to The Alamo this weekend, and I was lucky enough to be there and get to buy him a souvenir. I know, it's not related to my garden, but it's my blog, and I can post what I want to!

Winter Color for the Landscape

Winter in Lubbock doesn't have to be be brown all the time!  Nandina offers great winter color for West Texas.  Here are a few pictures I snapped in my back yard.

  

Nandina provides brilliant winter foliage!

Landscaped with City of Lubbock free mulch and drift wood from the farm.

Nandina is available locally in several varieties than can be used as a ground cover or a samll to medium sized bush.  The green plant in front is Mediterranean Pink Heather which stays low and compact.  It is green all year long and displays small pink blooms in the winter.  Don't over water, though, it likes to stay dry.

Mediterranean Pink Heather blooms (close up).

Debbi, This One's for You!

Debbi, I just found your previous comments, so here are some images of January's stark beauty... just for you!

Sad, but oddly beautiful...!

Wind Chimes

God's Christmas light display in January

(Enlarge this one... It's worth it!)

Juniper on ice

Graphic art courtesy of the patio chair

Starting Seeds Indoors Using Jiffy Pellets

Okay, so my neighbor harassed me tonight about not having posted anything lately - at least she's nice enough to check out my blog from time to time!

So in the last week I've been starting my peppers and tomatoes in Jiffy Pellets which are basically compacted peat used to germinate your seeds indoors.  Just add water, and watch them grow - kind of like Sea Monkeys but faster!

Jiffy Pellets in two sizes, dry and compact and then expanded with water.

Jiffy Pellets in the tray...

...and with the lid on.

So I started my peppers a week ago - Costa Rican Sweet, Habanero, Poblano (Ancho), Hungarian Wax, and Sweet Banana.  Last year I had tons and tons of Hungarian Wax and Banana peppers, but I wanted to add more variety this year, hence the others which all came from Burpee.  Costa Ricans are listed as large and great for grilling, Habanero are for HOT sauces and dishes, and Poblanos are for stuffing. 

You might ask, "Why no jalapenos since you live in Texas??"  Well, I had such a bumper crop a couple of years ago that I'm still using those which I dehydrated and then pulverized into a powder in the blender - a little of that goes a long way!

Red, orange, and yellow Wax and Banana peppers from last year's garden.  I canned tomatoes in a hot water bath, but the peppers I just packed in straight white vinegar and stored in the fridge with no heat processing.  They've been delicious all winter - in fact, I think I like them even better once they've marinated, plus the hot vinegar that results is great for flavoring all kinds of dishes!

For tomato varieties this year, I'm trying Black Truffle Hybrid (a hybrid of the heirloom variety Black Truffle), Sun Gold Hybrid (a yellow cherry tomato), Jubilee (yellow medium), and Roma (a reliable producer for this area).  The Black Truffle and Sun Gold are new for me this year (from Burpee).  I grew the Jubilee last year, and the yellow color jazzes up any dish!  I also grow the Roma every year as it gets enough size for slicing but is not so big as to have problems with cracking.