Month: August 2013

We have bugs.  Bugs in the tomato plants.  Big green caterpillars.  And I do mean big.  These things are eating the leaves off my tomato plants.  And with my happy tomato plants, I have big happy bugs.  BUT I’m not happy about the bugs.  I’ve been picking them off and putting them in a container with cactus.  We’ll see if they like cactus.  And hopefully they can’t get out of the container.  Not happy about these critters.

I looked them up and it seems I have tomato hornworms.  They grow into hawk moths.  They eat the leaves of tomato and pepper plants.  Actually they ate all the leaves off one pepper plants.  But the plant does seem to be trying to recover – its putting out new leaves.  I’m not sure how to get rid of these things other then to pluck them off and kill them.  I’m not sure exactly how to kill them.  So for now they are going into the cactus pot.  Its a pot of cactus I’m trying to kill off.  I dug it up with a hoe and put it into an empty pot so it can’t set new roots. That’s what I’m dropping the tomato hornworms into.  Don’t know if they like cactus, we’ll find out.

Wow.  We have been having some work done at the house, extending the back patio and paving the area with pavers, changing out some plants, and getting mulch put down.  Yes, I know, we’ve had workers doing most of the work.  But we’ve been woken early – the workers usually started at 7 or 8 AM and finished by mid afternoon in order to beat the heat late in the day.  Its made for early mornings.  But the planters do look good and the patio extension looks great.  So it has been well worth the expense.

Things I am learning during this work.  Even plants they want full sun can benefit from some afternoon shade.  Many of the pots I had in the back near the patio got moved into what areas I could find that got some afternoon shade.  They are doing pretty good.  The couple of matching pots that were in full sun are growing, but not doing as well.  Moral of the story – afternoon shade helps in this heat.  As a learning lesson the tomato plants that get absolutely no shade, down in the retaining wall planter are big and lush.  They get watered via soaker hose.  But I have gotten not one tomato from them.  Not even a small one.  They put out flowers, but no tomatoes yet.  The plants in the raised bed have given me tomatoes, albeit not large fruit.  But those do get some shade but get full sun in the afternoon.

I’m not taking any of them out, but I will keep tabs on them to see how they do as we cool down.  Speaking of cooling down we may be out of the 100 degree days.  We are still in the 90’s but low 90’s here at the house.  Today we only made about 92, with a heat index of 94.  Much better then the 98 with heat index of 103.  That’s just plain hot.  I wouldn’t say autumn is here, but at least we’re not in the high 90’s this week.

We also were lucky.  We got a little rain – only 0.13inch but we’ll take what ever we can get.  They are saying more rain, 60% chance next week.  Hopefully we’ll get some.  That would be nice.

We’re making a few changes to the front.  One of the crape myrtles just is not doing anything.  The two flanking the stairs look great, the other one, not so great.  So we are going to dig the little one up, and plant two Italian Cypresses in the two cut out areas in front of the house.  That’s tomorrow’s job.  We did some weeding this morning, and that’s hard work.  So we’ll plant the cypresses tomorrow morning.  The little crape myrtle we are digging up we will put in a pot and see if we can get it to grow.  I’ll put it in the back yard so that its safe and it will get water as I water the other backyard plants.  Since I usually water them every other day, they do get good watering.  Let’s hope the little crape myrtle grows and survives.

Things I’m learning this summer.  I have two pots that do not have drainage holes – the strawberry pot and another pot.  Pot 2 has plastic taking up part of the bottom of the pot.  The strawberry pot is entirely filled with soil.  When we had our recent over and inch of rain, the strawberry pot was practically floating.  It actually had water sitting on the top of it.  I gently tilted the pot onto its side and let water drain out.  I hadn’t realized the strawberry pot didn’t have drainage holes.  I knew pot 2 didn’t have hole, but I knew it had plastic in the bottom taking up some room.

I’m starting to wonder if holding water in these pots is not quite the bad thing during the summer.  Yes, the strawberry plants are getting some sun burn, but considering the heat of the sun and the fact the pot is sitting in direct sun with no shade – I’m not surprised some of the edges are getting burned.  But I wonder – if I don’t put drainage holes, and put the pot somewhere it will get some shade, will the plants do okay?  Its making me wonder if pots I use for summer planting can hold more water, not drain so much, will it help the plants?  Would it give them more available water for their roots?  I’m not sure if it will, but I’m thinking maybe I should try it next summer.

The other thing I’m realizing, is I need to figure out how to get more shade for some of the plants.  Wind is a problem here, but for those plants that don’t get any shade, is the brutal sun the biggest problem?  The lemon tree that is currently sitting in the sun seems to take it okay.  But its a really large pot, so it has quite a bit of water.  And right now I’m watering pretty much every other day.  So the plants have water.  But shade, we just don’t have much shade in the back yard.

Tuesday they start working on extending the back patio.  They will be putting in a row of blocks to hold crushed granite.  The crushed granite will be topped with pavers.  It will essentially extend the back patio.  I’ve had pots sitting in that area.  Right now they are moved into the back area that does get some shade.  But after the work is done, those pots will go back where they were.  This area actually gets morning sun until about 2-3 pm.  Then the shadow from the house moves into that area and the pots get shade.  I think they like having that afternoon shade.

I’m also starting to think about this winter.  Last winter we didn’t cover any of the plants.  I’m thinking this year all the esperanza’s and the plumbago’s need to be covered.  They took a beating in the cold last year – they froze back almost and to the ground.  When I cut them back in spring, most of the branches had to be cut back to almost the ground.  Some of the branches just broke off because they had frozen and were dead.  I’d like to no repeat that again.

I’m also thinking that I want to set up planters in the back for veggies for next year.  We have two areas that are hard rock areas.  They don’t even grow weeds well.  So I’m thinking maybe I need to put down either mulch or crush granite or something, then put down weeds barrier, then put square planters on top of that.  But this time I really do need to fill the planters better, with more soil.  I also need to make sure I feed more and on a better schedule next year.

We’ll see what we can come up with.

How hot is in here your ask.  Well its now 11:15 pm and its 86 degrees with a heat index of 90.  Our high today was 98.  Welcome to Austin hot!