Posts Tagged ‘Fort Worth Gardening’

Organic tomato harvest was a good one, despite the plants being attacked by wilt as the tomatoes ripened.

First: the good news. The tomatoes have produced a large crop — probably about ten pounds — of yellow and red organic tomatoes. Also, the chickens, interestingly, have started laying again, despite the daily over-100 heat. I don’t know how long this will last but it’s good as far as it goes.

On the bad side, a type of tomato wilt is taking over the garden. My stepfather David visited the Cowtown Farmer’s Market last weekend, partly to check out the stuff they were selling, and partly to ask for advice since his tomatoes have the wilt as well. The chief advice? Choose wilt resistent varieties. I did notice that the Celebrity tomato seems perkier and stronger against the wilt than the others. The heirloom variety I planted seems to have no green leaves left. We will soon have to tear out the tomatoes. David is, I think, starting some new tomatoes in the Gurney Smart Start so perhaps we can still have a fall crop.

Meanwhile, to try to make an accounting of the current state of “Mom Farm:”

Income:

Organic chicken eggs:  maybe 132 this year at 25 cents each: $33.

And tomatoes: 10 lbs at $3 per pound, $30.

Basil: Ten bundles at $1.75 per bundle: $17.50

Yellow crookneck squaush: 1 at $.75.

Total income: $81.25

Costs?

Chicken food — $24.

Seeds and drip watering supplies, hardware for chicken pen: $30

(Then there is the money that my mother and stepfather put into the drip system, garden boxes, and berry vines, but I don’t know that I can bill against a gift. Also, in fairness anything used over the space of several years has to be depreciated, not charged out total.) So:

total expense: $54

Current “farm” income: $27.25.

Not much, I suppose, when you consider the amount of labor. It’s probably best looked at as a hobby that pays you back. And the year’s not over, so maybe we’ll get more crops.

From a press release by the City:

Who/What: Dedication of 38 “pocket” gardens featuring native Texas plants.

When: 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, June 30.
Where: Fort Worth Garden Club Headquarters Building at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, 3220 Botanic Garden Blvd., Fort Worth 76107
Why: More than two dozen garden clubs from around the state donated money to remove invasive plants at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and establish a one-acre Texas wildscape for visitors to enjoy and learn about native plants from across the state.

A rough draft of the raised bed and drip watering layout I made last winter.

Over the weekend, I took a financial planning course that emphasized setting goals for yourself as a way of getting where you want to be.  Interestingly, this morning as I was cleaning off my desk, I found a plan I had drawn up for what I wanted to do with the garden. I found it remarkable when I looked at it and saw that I had donw almost exactly what I had planned back in January. Meanwhile, the rest of the garden, which I had not planned what to do with, remained pretty much what it had been before.

This made me reflect: how much of gardening success is planning? The answer is a great deal. The idea I have always had, that you can just add plants as you go, is actually a very bad one, if you look at how it’s gone over the years. Think about the great gardens of the world or your neighborhood, and you’ll come to the conclusion that none of them just grew spontaneously on a whim. All of them were planned.

Cilantro, basil, and in the back tomatoes have grown a great deal from their seedling days back in February.

Part of the reason is that garden infrastructure — paths, fences, raised beds, trellises, and fountains — have to be in place before you grow the actual plants. But part of it is horticultural as well. The truth is, if you really think through what’s likely to work, and only put effort into that which you’ve carefully considered, you’re saving time. A lot of time. As one who only started doing this recently, I’m telling you from experience.

Although spring gardening is over, it is getting close to time now to plan the fall garden. If my experience this spring is worth anything (and it is) it’s more than time to think about fall. I looked around for suggestions on how to plan a fall garden, and after reading about a dozen, I chose these:

Fall Gardening article from Mississippi State University

Plan a Fall and Winter Garden from eHow

Planning for a Great Fall Garden from About.com

To see those large tomatoes in the image above when they were just beginning their growth, click here.

Familiar and exotic flowers and stonework decorate the six homes of the Historic Fort Worth Hidden Gardens Tour

If you’re a gardener or a plant lover, next weekend you may want to check out the Hidden Gardens Tour sponsored by Historic Fort Worth. A kind of pub crawl for plant lovers, this year the tour will visit gardens in the area surrounding Ridgelea Country Club. Ridgelea has just come of an age eligible for historic preservation, and with its large-sized lots and many period (1950′s era) details and landscape design concepts, it turns out to be an excellent site for exploring the potential of gardening in North Texas.

A Japanese style bridge arches cozily over a swimming pool in this Asian-themed garden on the tour

The tour consists of 6 homes. The gardens were chosen for creative use of space, diverse plantings, unique sites, ourdoor living, and overall aesthetics.

The owners of the homes on the tour have incorporated stonework, statuary, water, both natural and engineered, and plantings of shrubs, groundcovers, flowers and trees both local and exotic to create separate worlds in their own backyards.

The flavor of the tour is both nostalgic and optomistic.  In the 50′s, automobiles had just become the general mode of transit, the country was growing rapidly, and people expected prosperity and expansion. As you walk through the gardens, you can see how the designers  incorporated the outdoor ideals of that age, using large windows in the houses, creating outdoor patios off the kitchen for dining al fresco,  or placing a wooden bench just where you’d need it for relaxing under a tree. Looking out over boats tied up on one of Ridgelea’s two secluded lakes, one does seems to have stepped into a another time.

A swan comes to investigate the garden tour at a home off Bal Lake

Arching trees form a canopy over the backyard of this contemporary home next to a creek, making for a secluded retreat.

I visited the gardens yesterday morning with the docent/volunteers who were getting ready to host the event. They will be stationed along the tour, meeting people at the various houses and answering questions. Many of these garden hosts are Tarrant County Master Gardeners, who will be wearing large blue nametags. Master Gardeners have a wealth of information about how to make a North Texas garden, having been trained extensively by Texas Agricultural Extension. If you have a problem in your landscape, you can ask and get an answer that’s both well informed and local.  Some of the master gardeners specialize in conventional methods; other focus on purely organic gardening technique.

How To See The Tour:

Saturday, June 13^th the gardens will be open between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.  Sunday, June 14^th The gardens are open between noon and 4:00 p.m.

Admission: $15 per person in advance of the tour; $20 per person on tour days.

Rain or Shine!

For information or to obtain tickets contact Historic Fort Worth at 817-336-2344 or visit  www.historicfortworth.org. Tickets will also be available at Archie’s Gardenland, 6700 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Dorian’s Designs, 2701 South Hulen, Into the Garden, 4600 Dexter Avenue, and Into the Garden,4527 McKinney Avenue, Dallas

Proceeds from the Hidden Gardens of Fort Worth Tour benefit preservation programs at Historic Fort Worth, Inc. including the ongoing maintenance and operations of Fort Worth’s two cattle baron mansions, the Ball-Eddleman-McFarland House and Thistle Hill.

Yesterday, we visited the botanic garden again, and because it was a certain kind of day — slightly rainy, towards the late afternoon — and because there were very few people in the gardens, we decided that we would visit the Japanese Garden, which is the crown jewel of the park.

We don’t go every time we visit the Botanic Garden, partly because it costs money — $3.50 per adult and $2.00 per child — to get in, but more because you have to have the right group of people and the right conditions to enjoy it. It’s not as fun to go to the Japanese Garden when it’s thronged with people. It’s also not fun if anyone in your group is tired, mentally or physically. You need all your senses alert to appreciate the experience.

Entering the garden through a high wooden fence and gatehouse, you look into a tree shaded valley, filled with fenced walkways, rocks, evergreens, ponds, and pagodas. You feel as if you’ve entered a mystical world of history or perfected forms. Under ideal conditions, such as were had on this visit, the garden is almost silent. You move from interest point to interest point, enjoying the water, the trees, the stones and the animals which include squirrels, blackbirds, and koi.

Feeding the koi is something kids appreciate the most. The koi, some of which are over 2 feet long, come to the surface of the ponds, opening and shutting their round mouths for food you buy (just 25 cents) from a dispenser. Children delight in throwing food into the throng of fish and watching them flop around in the water, struggling for a tiny bite. 

The Zen Garden asks you to expand your imagination and try to "reach" for the world of ideas. The viewer looks at the patterns in the sand, and imagines a river.

The Karesansui (I’ve always heard this called a Zen garden) is another important attraction. You walk up onto a wooden deck and make your way around the carefully raked white gravel in the garden, which is shaped to resemble a river. Depending on how long you are able to stay in contemplation, you may have more or less of a feeling of detachment from worldly cares, a kind of acceptance of the idea that all is not as it appears.

There’s plenty more to see (a map brochure offered by the gate lists 19 areas of interest). The entire visit takes about an hour, longer only if you like to sit and contemplate, which wouldn’t be the case if you were me, and had small children to watch.

Photocredits: Flickr Creative Commons, JoshBerglund19

Spring roses at Fort Worth Botanic Garden

We visited the botanic garden again this weekend. The spring blooms are just beginning to fade, so if you wanted to see them this year, I suggest you get over there this week.

We discovered a huge selection of snapdragons in the four seasons garden, which is across the parking lot from the rose garden terrace. Here tall stalks of yellow, red, orange and purple made for an impressive display. But, showing that I really am a child in my mind, all I could think of was showing the kids how to make the snapdragons snap.

It took a few experiments, but finally we came up with the following video:

We also enjoyed the rose garden, which is covered in blooms at this time of year, and the fountain at the bottom of the terrace, where, as always, we threw lots of pennies.

You can farm in the city, and work for multiple environmental issues, by using the techniques of permaculture.

Have you always wanted to live on a farm but can’t leave your city lot? Cheer up. Now you can learn how to make your city lot a farm using the techniques of permaculture.

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements that integrates agriculture with everyday life. The theory is that using basically sound agricultural and human cultural impulses, food can be produced and the environment kept clean and renewable.  Backyard tomato farms, keeping chickens, bees, collecting rainwater and all kinds of other projects become possible when you think of your home as a modern victory garden.

Kristin Huber, a local environmentalist and urban-homesteading advocate, has organized a permaculture seminar in Fort Worth beginning May 30th. This is a repeat of a course offered in March. The following information was given about the instructor in the email alert:

Wayne Weiseman, a life long permaculturist and experienced teacher, will lead this 2009 Course in Fort Worth, Texas. Wayne has been authorized by the Permaculture Institute of Australia (Mollison’s Founding Organization) to teach and grant PDC certification and receives constant praise from students as being an excellent teacher. Each certificate that Wayne grants is dated, numbered and registered with the Permaculture Institute of Australia.

Deadline to register is May 15!!

Go to www.dfwpermaculture.com for more details.

Image credit Samuel Mann.

In addition to all the recreational digging that has been done, it’s time for an update on my gardening resolutions for 2009.  To revisit the 8:

1. I said I would build proper, 12-inch tall raised beds.  We now have two, one-foot-tall beds and will be filling them with dirt shortly.  However, I have to admit it was my mother’s husband David, not me, that built them. He also saw the wood, discarded on a curb waiting for someone to pick it up, and I went and got it for free. The result was I got my raised beds for almost nothing, and I didn’t have to do any work. I’m actually rather still in shock about this.  David says we can get free compost from the City of Fort Worth at the Botanic Garden, although he admits it’s not perfect. “What do you mean?” I ask.

“It’s not particularly fine and it’s got little pieces of stuff, like plastic, in it. But it grows stuff just fine.”

All I can say about that is I’m not a picky person when the price is right. Especially when the right price is free.

2. I said I would construct a quality irrigation system using drip irrigation with  a timer. We’ve got plans to do this.  Right after we dump the compost into the beds.

3. I will make a reasonable and well thought-out planting plan.  I guess I’d better get to work on that. The tomatos and peppers that I started growing a little over a month ago are almost ready to be put in, and I also managed to get three blackberry plants which I hope to put in this afternoon.  I’ve scoped out some nice 1×1 staves to put next to the tomatoes so they can be tied up as they grow. 

4. I will keep up with the weeding. We’ll see about that.

5. I will not start any other time consuming major projects or new hobbies between March and June.   So far so good, but I’m wavering … last week I lost another chicken, so baby chicks may be needed.

6. We will not go on any two week long vacations during the harvest season this year. We should have this one in the bag because we don’t have the money.

7. I will try to keep well-informed and inspired by reading blogs about gardens. Okay: truth to tell. I didn’t do it. But I’m going to start!

8. I will update this blog with my successes and failures.  So far so good.  There’s this one, then also “How to Prune Your Roses,”  ”How to Start Tomatos Inside” and “Gardening Saves the Day.”

Yesterday morning, as we were putting our lunch together for the family outing to the FW Zoo (an outing which, I would like to note, we would be sharing with just about every other family with children in the city, it seemed) a strong knock came at the door.

“Who could that be?” I worried. I looked outside. A utility work truck was at the curb. I opened up the door and there was a workman, with hard hat, sunglasses, and boots on. 

“I’ve been assigned to shut off your electricity,” he said.

Well this was very bad news, and not something I was expecting. Since the burglary, I’d not kept very good records, but I didn’t remember forgetting to pay the electric bill.  Although I knew immediately I almost certainly had. I told him this.

“Well,” he continued, “I saw your kids yesterday working on the yard, and I thought it was so nice that they were cleaning everything up, and I was like, ‘no, these people are not going to get shut off.’ I have some flexibility. It’s on my work list, but it’s not considered urgent. I can put it off a couple of days.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, stupified.

“Yeah, well, I just really thought it was great, all the repairs you’re doing … anyway, you’ve been blessed. Make sure you pay that bill right away.”

“I will, and thanks so much.” He smiled and shook my hand, strode down the path, a man doing a good deed.

Gee, I thought, as I walked away from the door, I guess taking good care of our houses really is important to others. Our yard has needed some attention for a while, and I guess he knew it from driving past. Apparently it was like Rudy Guilliant’s “broken windows” campaign, where he said the City of New York had to spruce up in order to be more efficient, friendly and safer.  We had generated good will just by raking up leaves and carrying out the brush.

The most interesting thing about this was it wasn’t me who did the yardwork. I bought the tools. But the two oldest kids were the ones who actually cleaned up the front.

“Hey kids!” I yelled. “All that yard work you did yesterday, just saved us from me forgetting to pay the electric bill.”

The kids looked on in surprise and then smiled modestly. They didn’t have to say anything; their deeds had already spoken for them.

This is a press release from the City. Sounds pretty good, especially the part about herb gardening:

The Fort Worth Water Department’s next semi-annual Yard Smart Seminar is Saturday, March 21, at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden Center’s Lecture Hall. The seminar is free and open to the public. No pre-registration is required.

Doors open at 8:15 a.m., and the program begins at 8:45 a.m. The event concludes at 12:30 p.m. with a tour of the Water Conservation Garden.

The purpose of the Yard Smart Seminar is to relay environmentally friendly and water-saving gardening information that can lead to healthy, beautiful lawns and gardens.

Dotty Woodson, water resources specialist for the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, will discuss Rain Water Harvesting. Growing Herbs & Vegetables is the subject of Tarrant County AgriLife Extension Agent Steve Chaney’s talk.

The third session, Ask the Expert, is a one-hour discussion between the public and a panel of four professionals on gardening and irrigation.

To learn more, call the Water Department at 817-392-4477.