2022 year in review-garden
This year's gardening efforts were mostly rubbish but there were a handful of highlights that keep me moivated on figuring out this thing called gardening. A late frost/cold snap zapped the Mexican Plum blossoms, killing any chance of fall jelly expermentation. Also, no early food source for the local pollinators(primarily bees and moths in years past)
After 4 years(or is it 3?) the Carolina Jessamine gave us its first and only blooms. We're gonna get there baby! Next March, we'll get 5!
And looping back to the Plum tree situation, there was a delay of the spring wildflowers this year and the bees were h0ngry, so I fed a smol swarm for roughly a week until the wildflowers finally showed up. No small feat, as I am v scared of stinging insects, but I am a sucker for a charity case so I couldn't just let them continue to struggle with the hummingbird feeders.
Gave up the good fight on forcing back the Heavenly Bamboo, in order to make a bird, bee, and butterfly garden in the middle of the backyard. Transplanted the Sweet Williams and Butterfly Bush to the house beds until the H.B. can be properly erradicated. Got some random annuals to fill in the vast empty bed spaces, honorable mentions for the Snapdragon and Dusty Miller who both just THRIVED. C got 2 zucchini plants for me and a jalapeño for himself, also placed in the house beds. I planted basil as well as having a go at a potted tomato. There was a whim purchase of 3 $10 rosebushes, two in the front bed (to replace the two that had died) and one by the back patio. Things were looking promising at the end of March/beginning of April.
Mid-April brought the Antelope-horn Milkweed back along with some new friends. There were eight total Monarch caterpillars who Eric Carle-ed their way through our humble milkweed before pupating all over the place.
Under a zucchini leaf was my personal fave pupation spot.
And then they emerged and did their butterfly thing. Backyard magic!
The Star Jasmine also gave us its first flowers after 3 or 4 years(planted the same day as the Carolina Jessamine).
Come June 1st, I harvested the first zucchini and I was ready for it. I love growing zukes. They are so damn hardy and it's a plant I've never had issues growing. I regularly have to shred and freeze my harvests because I can't keep up consuming them. I really love zucchini.
And then... the heat came. 100 degrees. Daily. For months. And yes, it's Texas. There is an expectation of hot, hot temps and little to no rainfall and watering with a hose here does nothing because the water is dreck. And so, the zucchini plants withered and died. The butterfly bush became crunchy, which I am still seeking to understand. C bought me another butterfly bush to cheer me up, and it also crunchified. I am hoping that they may return come the spring, though. Most of the annuals shriveled, withered, and passed. The rose bush by the patio kicked it. The Plum tree's leaves burned. C's jalapeño just kind of hung out, no flowers, no fruit, grew to 2.5 feet.
Looking back, I'm going to say the single most frustrating plant this year was the tomato. C kept undermining the way I was caring for it, watering and fertilizing after I had already done so. Moving it so that it could get "more sun". It didn't need more sun... anyway, this fucking tomato grew taller than me (5'6") and made a handful of flowers and didn't do much else. At some point, mid-July I think, the receptionist at my veterinarian's office mentioned an old wive's tale of getting a broom and(gently) smacking the top of the tomato plant, in order for it to start producing fruit. When I got home I said, "fuck it, why not?" And I'll be damned if it didn't start fruiting.
and that's it. The tomato harvest for 2022. As it turns out, tomatoes won't fruit if it's too hot, so a whole lot of unecessary labor and couple bickering for naught.
The basil put everything to shame by just g r o w i n g. I truly thought I was going to be struggling with this dude but it just kept chugging along, busting out branch after branch of delicious leaves. And I was checking on it everyday at sunrise to make sure there are no flowers because I have a habit of letting things bolt, and also, you know, everything else was deadsies. Frankly, if we hadn't received an early cold snap last month I think basil would still be rolling merrily along. I'm really hoping that it survives the winter and comes back.
Finally, the established fruit and nut trees and bushes suffered hard through the drought and heat. The dewberries burned and shriveled. The peaches looked okay at first but then stalled midway through growing. Come harvest time they were still small and green. Eventually, in August, they dropped and the local opposums and maybe the armadillos ate all but the pits. The figs seemed fine until it came time for the fruit to do their final plump out and instead shrank back and dropped to the ground. Another disappointment, as I wanted to experiment with making fig crumbles. The drought caused the pecan trees to opt out of producing any nuts this year. C impulse bought 3 trees for the "orchard"("they were on sale!"), so we added a banana tree that you can't even tell was planted, a loquat with shriveled crunchy leaves because they hate heat over 80, and another fig that looked lovely but once transplanted went into shock and dropped it's leaves.
Other work done: Chopped down Heavenly Bamboo in front bed. Fought to pull out as much of the root ball as possible (not much) and put down cardboard and landscape fabric in a bid to stop it from coming back. I'm mostly winning? I've had to go back in and remove some persistent spots and am due to do that again, actually. I also put down cardboard and a thick layer of leaf litter in the crape myrtle bed. Once I buy and put out some soil I will plop some landscape fabric on top, let that bitch percolate, and then (hopefully) next fall cram it full of bulbs and ferns. It's a nice bed but I much rather spend time in my backyard, than the front, so a set it and forget it bed would be preferable. I'm also going to try and bring back
