Ben, Maddie and I spent the entire morning in the garden today.  The weather was blissfully sunny and cool, with a light breeze.  I pulled up a few Cedar Elm and Hackberry seedlings, scooped dog poop, and watered potted plants.  I planted a Spineless Prickly Pear Cactus and moved a couple of Coral Nymph Salvia plants nearby.

The spineless prickly pear was Ben’s choice at our now-nearest garden store, Red Barn Garden Center.  Truthfully, I’m not crazy about the place; it doesn’t compare to Barton Springs Nursery or Natural Gardener in terms of native plant selection.  But Red Barn occupies space that used to be a miniature golf course, it’s big and open, with long, wide pathways, and it’s a great place for toddlers to run off energy.  I’ve been wanting a spineless prickly pear for years; this is my first time to grow one.  I was pretty pleased last week when I told Ben that he could choose a plant from Red Barn to add to our garden, and he chose this one.

My favorite plant in the garden right now is our Pink Turk’s Cap:

It hasn’t stopped blooming since I planted it last month.

Meanwhile our puppy Ash has been -erm- rearranging many of our other plantings.

I’m hoping that our Red Turk’s Cap and Chile Pequin survive their most recent dog maulings.  In case not, I harvested and planted a few seeds from the Chile Pequin this morning.

Most exciting this month has been watching our potted Roma Tomato plant flower and fruit:

Strangely, this is the closest I’ve ever come to actually eating tomatoes off of one of my plants, despite the fact that our new backyard is moderately shaded.  I guess the instability of the whole container/cage set-up deters squirrels?  The container is plastic, and not particularly heavy, so the whole thing tips fairly easily.  Or maybe hand-carting it around to the sunniest spots of the yard has actually helped?  Yes, I’ve been doing that when I think to.

Remind me to tell you the story of the 4 cubic yards of shredded cedar mulch that Nathan shoveled into our backyard a couple of weeks ago.