Wildlife sighted in the garden during the month of March 2008:

• European starlings (in the photo above)
• Great-tailed grackles
• White-winged doves
• Carolina wrens
• Blue jays
• American robins
• Northern cardinals
• various sparrows
• a woodpecker (probably downy?)
• Eastern fox squirrels
• and a green anole

This weekend Nathan and I had the opportunity to play outside, since grandparents were visiting the baby, I mean us. I re-sowed cucumber seeds where Sam dug them out last weekend; this time I planted straight eights instead of mideast prolific cucumbers. And Nathan devised a solution to keep Sam out of the beds, at least until the veggies are sprouted and grown up a bit. He cut sheets of wire mesh fencing to lay over the beds. The weave is wide enough to let plenty of water and sunlight through to the soil, but the fencing should still make the veggie beds less attractive to dogs. *fingers crossed*

After re-seeding the cukes, I planted a couple of African irises in a bed against the house. With a name like that, they’re obviously non-native, but I think I have a good case for planting them anyway. The bed I planted them in doesn’t receive much light, and African irises are supposed to tolerate shade reasonably well. Their 2-foot-tall, sword-shaped leaves contrast nicely with the purple and white trailing lantana that I’d already planted in the bed. African irises aren’t on any of the lists of invasives that I’ve seen, and they’re supposed to have low water requirements, too. So I’m being a bad nativist and giving them a shot:

Finally, I planted herbs in a set of square containers that I picked up at The Great Outdoors last week:

I planted chive seeds in the large green container. The lavender container holds chocolate mint, and the small mustard container holds peppermint. (I wanted some mint plants, but wasn’t brave enough to unleash them unfettered in any of the beds.)

Thank you for all of your kind comments on my last post–it’s helpful to hear words of encouragement from other gardeners who plant things in spite of their dogs, and the perspectives of other mothers who have survived the experience of parenting young children with some of their own interests intact. I look forward to meeting many of you at Spring Fling this weekend.

I’d like to share a quote from an essay I was reading this morning on reconciling Buddhist meditation practice with parenting; sometimes a little validation goes a long way, and I have a sense that many of you may appreciate the sentiment expressed in the essay, too:

The work we are doing as parents is often on the scale of picking up toys or cleaning scraped knees, yet it is joyous and vitally important. Our children will shape the world to come, and especially at this precarious time on earth, what is more vital than raising sane children who are compassionate and have an inkling about the world’s interconnectedness! 

-Amie Diller, “Practice at the Hearth.” In Dharma Family Treasures, edited by Sandy Eastoak.

May all children be happy and free from suffering, and may all mothers find the time to plant some veggies (or herbs, or whatever it is that they want to plant).

We spent a good part of the weekend resting and celebrating the arrival of spring, so I didn’t accomplish much in the garden over the past several days. Yesterday I did at least finish preparing one of the two raised veggie beds for planting. Then I planted a couple of tomato plants, a few pepper plants, and some marigolds, and I sowed cucumber and basil seeds.

A pear tomato plant that I picked up at Shoal Creek Nursery:

Not long after I finished sowing seeds, our Great Dane Sam dug out a Sam-sized sleeping spot in the freshly planted garden soil. He didn’t disturb the tomatoes, peppers, or marigolds, but I’m not planning to see any of the cucumber seeds sprout (unless it’s in the lawn next to the raised beds). Maybe some of the basil will make it, I’m not sure.

And this morning when I went out to check on the new transplants, I noticed that one of the chadwick cherry tomato plants that I grew from seed and then planted yesterday is gone. Simply gone–there’s just one lonely leaf lying on the ground in the tomato cage that I placed over the plant yesterday. *sigh*

Add to these unfortunate events that I feel it’s a struggle to find the time to work in the garden in the first place (mostly due to the obligations of feeding and caring for my beautiful 7-month-old boy)…

And I’m feeling really discouraged right now.

Maybe I just need to accept the losses and keep planting? It’s not like I expect every seedling to grow to maturity, or every tomato plant to produce fruit.

Or maybe I need to be a little less ambitious about gardening projects for the time being? After all, it’s easy to water potted plants on the front porch during naptime, and containers can be moved to dog-free locations.

Last night I signed us up to participate in the Great Sunflower Project, a study by biologist Gretchen LeBuhn of San Francisco State University. The goal of GSP is to assess the health of bee populations across the country, using data reported by citizen-scientists (that’s us!). Can’t wait until my sunflower seeds arrive. Cheers to Susan Harris for posting about GSP on Garden Rant, where I first read about the project.

Bees have been frequent visitors to the blooms on our redbud tree this month:

But as many of you have already heard, bees are struggling. And declining bee populations are a cause for concern, since bees pollinate all our plants, including plants that produce food. I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I really want to continue eating broccoli.

So again I say: go, bees, go.

Blooming in the garden this morning, March 15, 2008:

coral honeysuckle:

Scabiosa ‘butterfly blue’ pincushion flower:

purple trailing lantana:

and the last of the apple blossoms:

Other plants blooming in our garden this morning include:

• dandelion
• henbit
• white trailing lantana
• Texas redbud
• purple and white pansies (despite the 90-degree temps here in Austin yesterday)
• red and pink cyclamen

Happy Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day!

(Go, bees, go!)

I only recently learned that using peat is environmentally unfriendly. So without thinking about it, I purchased a tray of peat cubes to start my tomato and pepper seeds in this year:

(The four leftmost cubes are Chadwick Cherry tomatoes, and the four rightmost cubes are jalapeño peppers.)

However, I don’t want to continue contributing to the destruction of peat bogs, so I’ve been collecting ideas for more sustainable ways to start seeds. Here’s what I have so far:

• using coir pots (made from coconut fiber) instead of peat
• cutting cardboard toilet paper tubes in half and pinching in the bottoms to make pots
• cleaning out eggshells and using them as planters (powerful symbolism, huh?)
• starting seeds in plastic sandwich-sized bags
• making pots out of old newspaper

There are many similar sets of instructions for making newspaper pots already floating around the gardening blogosphere. I’ve been making origami newspaper pots, using these instructions and modifying them slightly to suit my purpose.

Good thing my parents left a newspaper the last time they visited–we get all our news from the web web.

Texas redbuds are some of my favorite Central Texas trees. Their eye-catching pink blooms are unmistakable harbingers of spring around Austin. Here are a couple of photos of our redbud from this morning:

We’re lucky to have inherited one with the property–if we hadn’t, a redbud would be at the top of my plant wish list.

Besides the backyard, one of my favorite spots for sighting spring redbud blooms is along Capital of Texas Highway (alias Loop 360). The redbuds stand out as pinky-purple explosions of color on slopes otherwise covered in mountain cedars (Ashe juniper trees).

In fact, there are lots of sights for nature-lovin’ types along Loop 360, and if you’re coming to Austin for Spring Fling, it’s a route you might enjoy. In addition to scenic views of Hill Country vegetation, both the Pennybacker Bridge over Lake Austin and Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve are located along Loop 360.

Reliable sources say we may not have a spectacular wildflower showing this spring along 360 and other highways, since we haven’t had much rain yet this year, but the redbuds don’t seem to mind.

Blossoms on our apple tree in early spring:

white apple blossoms
tiny cumulus clouds
on grey branches

***

(PS: Help a newbie out–does anyone know what kind of tree these blooms belong to?

I’d be grateful for the ID if you know.)

On Saturday, Nathan, the baby and I went to The Natural Gardener, where I resisted the temptation to buy new plants, and instead invested in garden soil and a new compost bin. We bought a Complete Composter. It’s made from PVC-coated wire mesh, and it has a nifty center chimney piece for watering and improved aeration in the center of the pile:

On Sunday, Nathan pruned a few trees, while I pulled weeds and planted some white lantana that had been waiting patiently in its nursery pot for over a week now:

The garden is bursting with new life. Our Texas redbud tree is blooming, the apple tree continues to bloom, and the figs are all budding out. I’m not the first to announce its arrival, but Spring is definitely here in our little corner of North Austin. All we need now to fuel the coming show is a good spring rain.