Dichondra

We planted the Bermuda lawn from seed last spring.  It is planted in solid red clay.  We have fertilized and watered the lawn, but it still has a ways to go.  This means that it is ripe for weeds to take over.  Among the weeds growing in the lawn, I have found lots of dichondra.  This vile little weed is near impossible to pull up – it roots at every leaf junction.

At first I thought it was Creeping Charlie, but this weed has smooth, not fluted, leaf edges.

It rapidly spreads and crowds out Bermuda.  I have sprayed Bayer weed killer herbicide on it even though dichondra is not listed on it’s label.  If it doesn’t start to yellow soon, I will have to try something else – maybe vinegar.  Last choice will be to buy another commercial herbicide.

I haven’t seen any flowers so I don’t know how this stuff is spreading all over the place.  All over the place.

Cactus On The Porch – Waiting For The Greenhouse

My baby cactus patiently waiting on the porch for the arrival of the greenhouse.

Many of the little cactus were started from seed.  It ain’t easy, but some of the seeds do survive and grow.  Most of the tiny cactus are started from cuttings and pieces of larger cactus.  These guys can’t take all day full sun.  Where they are now, they get late afternoon soon.  They seem to be OK with that.

Tomatoes in Pots

I am growing some tomatoes in pots – they look to be about 5 gallon pots.  I simply don’t have enough raised bed space for all of the tomatoes that I start from seed.  These guys didn’t make it into the garden proper.  We have a secondary raised bed where we are growing about 4 dozen tomatoes.  This is the main eating and canning bed – where we grow the crop to can.

These are Twilley Seed Co seeds.  The large tomatoes (8 oz) are Grandoise.  I don’t recall off the top of my head what the cherry toms are, but they are a hybrid variety that fruits like a cluster of grapes.

Since the summers are so hot here, I can not grow jumbo heirloom varieties.  I have tried – it just doesn’t work.  No fruit sets when the daytime temps rise above about 90 degrees – which is just about all summer!  I grow varieties whose fruits are about 8 oz.  This size sets fine and is large enough to easily process for canning.

For this volume of potting soil, I have been making my own.  I have been mixing my home made compost, some perilite (I buy it by the 3 cu ft bag), some peat moss and some cheap compost stuff from the big box store because I need the sand in it.  The ratio changes – I just eyeball each batch.  Seems to work well.