2024: Spring
Intro
The season of flowers! We hope. We actually set out with four goals in mind for the growing season of 2024.
The first goal was to get some flowers on our Dragon Fruits. It would be great if we could get some fruit, but we are setting the goal at flowers.
The second goal was to create a bumble bee haven. The hope it to have a whole mess of zinnias and sunflowers for them to frolic in.
The third goal is a basil army.
Make some type of food? My sister got me quite a few different seeds to plant and try to grow. All of which are either a veggie or a fruit.
That all being said, there were many new plants to plan, and many returning plants to feed. A plan was formed.
Getting Organized
This ended up being the layout. The red is the porch and grey are flower beds. The bed on the right ended up being a “yolo garden” where seeds were tossed carelessly into the dirt. The bed on the left was organized in lines. As far as the various pots go, the break down is as follows.
6, 7, 8, 4, 10, 2, 9, 3, 5 Dragon Fruit
16, 15 Date Palm
17 Pineapple
11 Tender Sweet
14 Basil
13, 18 Blueberry
12 Strawberry Popcorn
20, 19 Tomato
Zinnias & Sunflowers
The two beds at the top of the diagram were populated with sunflowers, zinnias, or both. The bed on the right has quite a few zinnias and sunflowers tossed randomly about. The bed on the left actually has two climbing roses in it, so a few rows of zinnias were planted in between them. The hope here is that we can create a whole mess of flowers to attract pollinators. This is in part to help pollinate the other flowers, but also so I can get some macro shots of a few bugs. So far the flowers have been left largely to their own devices, however starting April we started feeding them with some Jack’s Classic Bloom to encourage flowers. So far the “bloom juice” as we call it seems to be working quite well.
Left Bed
The left bed largely has herbs, corn, and zinnias in it. We are aiming to get an herb garden on the top half, corn on the bottom, and as I had extra space I threw in some zinnia seeds. So far the herbs seems to be struggling, they were planted in early March and do not seem to be sprouting. If I had to take a guess I think most of the seeds were duds. The basil sprouted, however nothing else really did. The “corn” which is really strawberry popcorn is very happy, this is one of the seeds my sister got me. The zinnias that were planted mostly to fill the space and provide a little color sprouted quite well, but seem to be struggling.
Right Bed
The right bed is yolo gardening at its finest, this was perhaps not my best choice either. Squares were sectioned off and seeds were tossed in much like you would seed grass. I have a few sprouts of everything, just not nearly as much as I would have hoped for. I have about 3 lemon cucumber scattered about. A clump of purple vienna which I am going to have to thin out. A clump of watermelon radishes I will most likely have to thin out. A small mess of purple basil, and a very large mess of green basil.
Dragon Fruit
The goal for the dragon fruits this year is to at least get a flower, with the real hope being to get a fruit or two. So far the Dragons were taking out of the greenhouse once the weather stopped going below 50 at night (mid march), and were placed on the back patio. It should be noted that we do have an automated awning that comes down at 2 pm and goes back up at 8 pm to keep the patio cool as it can quickly walk up to north of 100 degrees. The plan for the year is to give the Dragons a top dressing at the start of the season and then top them off so to speak with some fertilizer to encouraging blooming once a month. The fertilizer being used as of this point in time is Jack’s Classic Bloom so far this year we have no had any blooms, but we do have a lot of solid new growth. The top dressing was a mix of local compost, blood meal and bone meal.
Date Palm
The date palms are going to be a slow burn, as far as trees go, they are a pretty slow grower. At the start of the season they got a top dressing of bone meal, blood meal and some local compost. Largely speaking we don’t have much a goal for these guys other to keep them happy and growing. So far though, so good. They started as twigs, and are now much larger looking baby trees.
Pineapple
The pineapple is going to be a slow burn. Pineapples take quite a bit of time to fruit, and really once they fruit, they are pretty much done. We gave the pineapple the top dressing of bone meal, blood meal and compost, and continue to hope for the best. In addition to the first pineapple (Libby) we are trying to grown another, just so that in the event we do get flowers, as can hopefully have some cross pollination. We may also give Libby some of the Jack’s Classic Bloom as well to see if we can encourage some flowers.
Tender Sweet
I don’t really have too much to comment on the tender sweet melons. To be quite honest, we ran out of space and soil. I have a pot that is about half full that I planted a good handful of the seeds in. So far I have about three sprouts that are going slowly, but are in fact growing.
As the Tender Sweets were struggling, they were moved to another bed.
Basil
The basil army! If you have looked at the diagram you are going to notice that we have a fair amount of basil all over the place. That is because my other half really likes basil and I was trying to grow her enough to freeze. We have both sweet basil and purple basil that we have in the left bed, we have also planted some basil with the tomatoes as companion plants, and we have also thinned out some of the basil from the right bed to put into little cups.
Blueberry
The blueberries were a bit of a late addition, I have always wanted to grow blueberries so when HEB has a few on sale we picked some up. So far the only thing we had to do was shift them to larger pots and give them some soil acidifier. The acidifier itself was pretty simple, just follow the instructions on the bag, based on what we have read the goal is to have a ph of around 4.5. After that, it it is just full sun and water.
Tomato
We started off with two tomato plants and quickly ended up with more. The first two plants were placed in buckets with some basil as a companion. We placed them on the side of the yard as the patio gets a bit too much sun for them. I did give them some of the Jack’s Classic Bloom in March which they did seem to enjoy, however after that I have largely left them to their own devices.
In addition to the two tomatoes that we bought, we were also gifted about 5 cuttings that we intend to plant. Right now, that are sitting in small water cups growing some roots before they get planted. Space is probably going to become an issue, but I am thinking that the bed on the right that didn’t have any herbs take, may be the best place to plant the tomatoes. The soil is fairly wet and rather sandy, which may be perfect.
Peppers
The complete accident. A while back a good friend of ours introduced us to Salsa Macho. As it turns out, both myself and my other half really enjoyed it and we actually ended up making a fair amount of it. However, to cut down on the spice we pretty much gutted the peppers. As we have been trying to learn how to grow various things, we have gotten to the point where we throw nothing away, so the seeds were kept. While I was getting the garden ready this year I did try to sow a few of the seeds, but nothing in the planter took. That said, I did trip while walking around and dropped a whole mess of them in a small pot, which oddly enough seem to be sprouting quite well. As those sprouts come up, I have been moving them to other pots.
Her Babies
Here recently my fiancée has started picking out some new friends for out garden. Most recently she has picked out a Finger Lime Tree (which I have named Fredrick) and a Celest Fig Tree (which I have named Issac). They are both happy as can be and living their best life.
Dahlias
One of my favorite flowers is the Dahlia. So far I have come up blank trying to grow them, however this year I have managed to get 3 to sprout. Hoping for the best.
Passion Fruit
I don’t know where these are even coming from at this point… A redditor mentioned they had some passion fruit cuttings they were giving away and the next thing I new two showed up in the garden.
