The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring

Two of the gaudy xeriscaping plants, my rose bush and the neighbor's cactus. I am tempted to sneak over to his yard and steal a few pads to start my own cactus.

Beavertail Cactus (Opuntia basilaris)


Lady Banks Rose (Rosa banksiae)

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Watching Grass Grow: 1 Year Later, It's a Lawn!

Happy birthday to my buffalo grass lawn! It was one year old on Sunday, and a long way from the sea of mud we had last year. This coming year I'll be reporting on the mowing and watering it needs to keep it attractive. it's about 80% greened up, and with the predicted warmer weather this week, it should be completely green by the first of April.



Our goal is not a putting green, our goal is a low-maintenance lawn that uses less water than Bermuda grass. This survived the abnormally hot and dry summer of 2009, and the abnormally soggy winter of 2009/10 with no problems.

I don't know about the Bermuda that I know is surviving in there - the neighboring Bermuda grass lawns went dormant and greened up simultaneously with the Buffalo grass. I'm going to have to control it with low water and neglect and some old-fashioned pulling. Read more!

Green grows my Buffalo ... already!

After a very rainy, almost freeze-free winter, it's warming up. The low temperatures have been mostly in the 50s and the highs in the mid-60s to as high as 78. With that bit of encouragement, the buffalo grass started sending up a few tiny green blades of grass. I responded by cutting them all off.


Mowing the grass short in early spring lets the sun reach the base of the plant where the new growth will come from. It trimmed off most of the dry ends, revealing a blotchy greenish lawn. By the end of March it should be all green.
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Tomatoes In January: Neener, Neener!

Look at the picture, taken January 23, 2010. Those are tomatoes I picked from my garden in the middle of  winter.

The fine print:

• They were picked when they were barely beginning to ripen and ripened indoors.
• They taste better than most store-bought tomatoes, but nowhere near as good as they do in warmer weather.
• Cold nights gives tomatoes the same mealy texture that they get in the refrigerator.
  
• This tomato growing area is elevated, and under the light shelter of a large mesquite, giving it more frost protection than the rest of the garden.

However, in a mild winter area like Phoenix, a small amount of frost protection can prolong your tomato harvest, perhaps until your new plants start producing. Read more!

Watching Grass Grow: It's Dead, Jim

The grass is now mostly khaki, not green. We had a 1-night cold spell and the temperature dropped to just below freezing. Apparently that's enough to trigger dormancy, because over the next week or so the green color vanished. This picture was taken December 12th.

The next question will be "How soon does it get green"? Read more!

Watching Grass Grow: Almost Thanksgiving, Still Green

As the title says, I'm still waiting for the grass to go dormant. Daytime temperatures have been in the 70s and nights about 50 for the past couple weeks. The grass is still growing, but more slowly. I'll probably mow it one more time this year.

Wayne Thorsen, Mr. Buffalo Grass, was here in early November. He doesn't know if the UC Verde cultivar will go dormant at all in this climate. It seems that I'm the on the cutting (mowing?) edge, and have the oldest UC verde lawn in the Phoenix area. Finally I'm trendy!

It's hard to photograph, but there is a faint purple tinge on the tips of the blades, which may be a sign it's going dormant. There are a few annual weeds sprouting through the grass,but nothing like the army of them we had this spring. Read more!

Okra Seeds as a Coffee Substitute?

One of the burning garden controversies of the 1840s was using okra seeds for coffee. The proponents were proclaiming it as the best thing since ... well, coffee.

Okra Seeds A Substitute For Coffee.—We find in the papers* a letter signed J. F. Callen, addressed to H. L. Ellsworth, declaring that the seeds of Garden Okra, when roasted and used as coffee cannot be distinguished therefrom, and many who have tried it pronounce it equal to the best 'Java.' The beverage is perfectly healthy, and as the seed is easily raised, he thinks it "destined at no distant day, to expel from our markets one of the most extensive articles of import."

We know how expelling coffee from our markets worked.

The comment from the editor was: "This sounds rather windy — but the matter can soon be decided by experiments, and we should be glad if some of our readers who have raised a surplus of of the seeds this season would try them as coffee and let us know the result." Ohio Cultivator vol. 1 No. 1 Columbus, Ohio, January 1, 1845

In the interest of science I sacrificed a half-cup of seeds and an hour of my time to toast and brew up some okra seeds. The resulting concoction was drinkable. With a bit of practice, you could make a brown, mellow-tasting, tolerable substitute for decaffeinated coffee. It was definitely better than Postum or Sanka.

Recipe:

Ingredients: 1/2 cup ripe okra seeds

1. Put a heavy skillet on medium heat for about 10 minutes to pre-heat.
2. Dump the seeds into the skillet and stir them frequently or shake the skillet.
   The seeds will go from dark green-black to light gray, then start turning brown
3. Keep stirring at least until the seeds start popping open - about 10 minutes. You can roast them longer, but cover the skillet or they will be all over the kitchen.
   (this would be a good place to use an old-fashioned popcorn pan)
4. Remove the seeds from the skillet and let them cool.
5. Grind the seeds in something (I used a coffee grinder) until they look like coffee. They are brittle and grind faster than real coffee. 
6. Brew, using about half as much water as you would for real coffee. Or twice as much okra as you would coffee.
   

*Instead of the blogosphere posting and commenting, our ancestors used a primitive "store and forward" technology called small town newspapers. Editors subscribed to many papers and routinely reprinted anything they thought their own readers would find interesting.
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Oh Rats! It's a Real Rat!

The mystery rodent of late August has been identified. R.I.P. Rattus rattus, who was found floating in the swimming pool today, dead. This is annoying, because they are the attic-invading, wire-chewing sort of rats. It's time to alert the neighborhood.

Rattus rattus, the "black rat" has recently invaded Phoenix, where the abundant citrus drop in some suburbs provides it with food. You can discourage them by meticulous attention to cleaning up dropped fruit and clutter that provides them with habitat.

I have compost heaps, a woodpile, tomato jungles, and many seed-bearing plants. This is not going to be easy. At least I only have one citrus tree left. Read more!

Watching Grass Grow: 6 Months Later

Six months into this experiment, I'm happy with the buffalo grass's performance. So are the quail.



There are still some questions about buffalo grass performance in Phoenix:

• When will it turn brown this fall?
• When will it green up next spring?
• How easy or hard will getting rid of the remains of the Bermuda grass be?
• How little water can it get and still stay reasonably green next summer?
• What will it look like with no mowing?

The claims that have been verified, at least in my lawn, are that buffalo grass needs less mowing and less water than Bermuda grass. I have mowed the lawn 5 or 6 times since it was installed, compared to the 4 or more times a month that Bermuda grass requires. It needs less water to stay green than Bermuda grass - 40% less in my experience, perhaps even less than that next year. Read more!

Tomatoes: The Second Season

I saw a 6-pack of locally grown Early Girl tomato seedlings at the big box nursery yesterday, which reminded me to remind you: We get another chance at killing growing tomatoes between now and the first frosts.

Here's the secret. Use varieties that can mature a crop in a very short time. Almost anything with "Early" in its name, or "short season" in its description will be able to grow, flower, and ripen fruit in the three or four months we have before a hard freeze. If it can produce fruit in a Montana summer (both months of it), then producing fruit during fall and early winter in Phoenix should be no problem.

The supposed "first frost" date is mid-November, but with a tiny bit of protection you can keep tender plants going until we get the big freeze that almost always happens in late December or early January.

Buy them as 6-12 inch transplants in six-packs and plant them in an area that gets a bit of afternoon shade now, or provide some shade with burlap, but pick an area that will be in full sun later in the year.
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