I’m thrilled that a few of you are still reading after my nearly four-month hiatus.  I didn’t do any gardening or garden blogging from October through December, since those were the last three months of my second pregnancy.  I was on a kind of modified activity for the last trimester of this pregnancy due to a history of pre-term labor, which didn’t allow for much besides the basics of taking care of my toddler son–so no gardening.  I gave birth to my daughter Madeleine on Thanksgiving Day.  I was 37+ weeks along, and she was born healthy and perfect.  If you’d like to see photos and read the occasional update on what I’m up to besides trying to spend some time in the garden, check out our family blog, Sunrise Ruby.

I’m looking forward to getting back into gardening and garden blogging as time permits.  Which may not be very often given that I’m now a mother of two under two.  Most of my time and energy these days goes toward making sure that we’re all decently fed and wearing clean clothes.  Nevertheless, I found time last month to plant beets, broccoli, and kale in our raised veggie beds, and most of the seedlings survived last night’s hail.   My son is now old enough to appreciate digging in the back yard with me, so that makes it easier to get outside and get my hands in the dirt from time to time, too.

Besides these major changes to life in my family, I’m making a few changes to Seeds itself.  First, I’ve removed my list of other Austin garden blogs from the right sidebar.  I returned to garden blogging last month only to discover that new blogs about gardening in Austin are popping up faster than dandelions in my neglected lawn, and I just can’t keep up.  I don’t want to leave anyone out, and other bloggers, such as Pam of Digging, are doing a better job than I am of keeping a list of bloggers in our community.  Thanks, Pam!  I hope to get to meet some of the new Austin bloggers sometime soon.

Just for fun, I’ve added a map that tracks the location of visitors to Seeds to the right sidebar.  I’m keeping a link to current weather conditions here in the Wooten neighborhood as reported by Victor Engel’s weather station on Weather Underground.

Finally, I imagine that new Seeds posts will be relatively sparse over the coming year, and that the character of these posts will be noticeably different than those of the first year.  I imagine that I’ll have more photo-only posts, more posts consisting of short notes that I’m recording primarily for myself, and shorter posts generally.  I read and appreciate all of the comments I receive, and I’ll try my best to make timely replies.  Bear with me, dear readers!  It’s hard to type one-handed, as I’m doing now, while a baby naps in my other arm.

Happy gardening in 2009 to all of you, and thanks for visiting.

Red-bellied Woodpecker (in the photo above)

Blue Jay

Northern Cardinal

European Starling

Red-winged Blackbird

White-winged Dove

Red-tailed Hawk

Great-tailed Grackle

Carolina Wren

various other unidentified sparrows and wrens

Eastern Fox Squirrel, including one albino squirrel who lives in our neighborhood:

I’ve seen the albino squirrel around the neighborhood often over the past 6 months or so, but this is the first time I’ve been able to photograph it.

I should probably also mention that I’m not entirely sure I’d know the difference between a Great-tailed Grackle and a Common Grackle unless I saw them side by side, so the grackle listing above may be incorrect or incomplete.

Sighted in a cottonwood tree in a neighbor’s yard yesterday evening:

This is the second time we’ve sighted the hawk at the same perch.  Anyone care to ID?

We’re nearly at summer’s end here in Austin–thank the gods!  The mid- to upper-nineties forecasted over the next week will be a welcome rest from the brutal, mostly triple-digit summer we’ve endured.  I couldn’t help appreciating how cool it was this morning as the boy and I sat on the grass outside and watched birds, catching the first scents of fall in the breeze that ruffled his oatmeal-crusted hair.

Our summer veggie garden is yielding its last harvests.  Only the basil and the ruby chard made it this far (both of which I used to make minestrone over the weekend).  The pepper plants are still alive, but haven’t even thought about flowering in at least a month.  All the other summer veggie plants have returned to that great compost heap in the sky.

Basil leaf, photo by Nathan

I’ve learned a lot from our first attempt at summer veggies.  I learned which plants can survive a brutal Austin summer, and how far apart we’ll need to space them next time.  I learned that a good soaker hose and timer, rather than relying on my own sporadic hand watering, is probably a wise investment.  And I learned that rats really enjoy young tomatoes fresh off the vine.  Not sure what to do about that one.

Now I’m turning my eye towards clearing out the veggie beds, refreshing the soil with compost, and ordering seeds for fall and winter.  So far I’ve got kale and broccoli on my list.  I’d love to try garlic, too.  Any others that fellow Zone 8 veggie gardeners would recommend?

In the garden this morning:

Anyone have swiss chard recipes they’d like to share?

Another summer harvest photo from a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of Nathan:

Lest our harvest photos lead you to believe otherwise, our summer veggies are mostly a bust.  All of the yellow squash plants were infested with borers, the cucumbers managed to suffer both from a lack of water and some kind of powdery mildew, and the tomatoes were eaten by rats before they could ripen.  The only plants still surviving are the swiss chard, the basil, and the peppers.  But while the pepper plants look healthy, they aren’t flowering anymore, so not sure how many more of these hot green things we’ll see.

Our first yellow crookneck squash of the summer:

Nathan was kind enough to take the photo for me. I wanted to slice the squash and cook it as soon as I harvested it.

I hope we harvest lots more squash this summer, but borers already got one of the other plants. Bah.

The yellow crookneck squash has burst into bloom over the past week.

It won’t be long now until we can sample some of the fruits (and veggies) of our labor.

A female cardinal eats loquats from one of the trees in the backyard.

It’s been nearly a month since I’ve updated Seeds. My MacBook died, and I needed to take a break from garden blogging after Spring Fling anyway. Although I haven’t been writing, I have been watering, and the garden keeps growing.

Most of the action right now is in the veggie beds. The pear tomato plant has grown to nearly five feet tall and has about a dozen tiny green fruits on it. The Chadwick Cherry tomato plant that I grew from seed is long and leggy, but otherwise doing well. The cucumbers, bell peppers, and crookneck squash are all growing nicely, and the jalapeños are about to flower. (Something’s eating the basil, though.)

I’m happy to announce that veggies aren’t the only thing I’m growing around here at Seeds–Nathan and I are expecting our second child in December. I’m excited (and nervous! about having two under two), and in all likelihood I’ll miss the better part of fall planting because my mind will be on the little life growing inside me, and less on life in the garden. We’ll see–I’m sure I’ll get around to scattering a few wildflower seeds, at least.

In the mean time, I’ll post photos and garden notes here as I have time and energy. If you’re still reading after my month-long hiatus, thank you. And Happy Mother’s Day to all the other mothers who read Seeds! May you have a day filled with joy, peace, and love from the ones you love.

The blue passion vine in our front yard has a handful of blooms on it, with many more buds preparing to open.

Passion flower blooms look almost otherworldy to me. The blooms on this vine smell a little like pineapple. Apparently the bumblebees enjoy them, too.