2022 Foxtail Garden

[foxtailferns]

I thought I might try to keep up with a grow log this year.

Our home garden is on a lot that's slightly under 7000 square feet in central Oklahoma City. The sunny half of our front yard is planted with perennial pollinator plants. Our side garden is mostly pollinator plants, flowers, herbs and other fragrant plants. The very back of our yard is the sunniest section where I grow vegetables in pots. This area was an awfully overgrown gravel parking space full of weeds and bermuda grass before we bought our house. We didn't have the energy to excavate, so I've been adding compost, leaves, plant waste, and coffee grounds for the last several years in hopes that I'll eventually build it up enough to grow in the ground back there. For now, I have around 75 nursery pots ranging in size from 5 gallon to 20 gallon. It's not pretty, but it works! I also added a 6x10 bed in front of our garage this year to cram in a few more tomato varieties.

I *think* I've finalized my tomato planting for the year.

In 20 gallon pots:
1 Juliet
1 Granadero
2 Jaune Flamme
1 San Marzano
1 Amish Paste
1 Cherokee Green
1 White Tomesol*
2 Black Krim
1 Evil Olive* (I've only heard bad things about this one since I bought the seeds, haha)
1 Estiva*
1 Riesentraube
1 Arkansas Traveler
1 Illini Star*
1 Atkinson*
2 Black Prince*
2 Pink Fang*

In 7 gallon pots:
2 Rosella Purple
2 Sweet Sue
2 Fred's Tie Dye
2 Lemon Ice
2 Maglia Rosa*
2 Cream Sausage*

In the new bed:
2 Lucky Bee*
2 Benevento*
1 mystery potato leaf found in the Illini Star seedlings
1 Paul Robeson

(*new to me)

I'm also trying some micros this year. I grew Micro Tom several years ago for a children's garden at work, but that's the only experience I have with them. I'm excited to see how they do! I'm growing Inkspot, Blaue Zimmertomate, Fat Frog, Jochalos, and Groovy Tunes. I got a bit of a late start with some of these, so only the Inkspot and BZ are large enough to pot up for now. I have them in some old used 1-3 gallon nursery pots.

Other than tomatoes, I have peppers--Jedi Jalapeno, Red Hot Cherry, Lemon Drop, and Aura plus a few that I bought from my favorite local grower--Carmen, Habanada, and Helios Habanero. I have a few cucumbers--Tasty Jade, Armenian, and Max Pack. I loved the Rampicante squash I tried last year, so I'm growing that on a fence panel arch. I also have Candystick Delicata--I've been wanting to try this for years since reading Carol Deppe's books and I finally got it together to make room. I have a couple of tomatillos and I'll probably pick up a couple of ground cherry seedlings this week. I'm experimenting with growing some Ideal Market pole beans on bamboo poles next to the house, but I'm not sure they'll do much. I also love to photograph insects, so I always have some zinnias and calendula mixed in with the veggie pots.

I think that's it for this year. I'd love to have more space, but do feel lucky for what I have and the time I have to spend in the garden.

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[MissS]

@foxtailferns I will be watching your gardens progress and I can't wait to hear your review of "Evil Olive".

[bower]

Looking awesome.

[foxtailferns]

@foxtailferns I will be watching your gardens progress and I can't wait to hear your review of "Evil Olive".

I'm very interested to see how they taste! I've heard "spitter" too many times, haha.

[foxtailferns]

It was a stormy morning, so there isn't much to be done around here today. After it dries up a bit more, I'm going to do some trimming on the tomato plants because I did notice a little soil splash on the lower leaves after the rain.

I saw this White Lined Sphinx yesterday. I've never seen one in our yard before. They flit around so quickly that I couldn't get a very good photo, but they're fun to watch. This one hung around the dianthus for 20 minutes or so.

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The monarch cats are loving the swamp milkweed that I put in last year. I bought 5 little seedlings from a grower in the neighborhood and they've all come back strong this year. We had several monarchs on the plants in late summer last year. I'm thrilled to see them so early this spring. I saved seed last year and have about 10 tiny seedlings to add to the patch this year.

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[Whwoz]

Just watch out for hornworms with those sphinx moths about @foxtailferns

[MissS]

I too love the White-lined Sphinx moth. They seem to occur here in three year cycles for some odd reason. I will see 50-60 at a time one year and then the next 2-3 years not a single one. They are out here more in August and September and it is so neat because as soon as the mob of migrating hummingbirds go to bed the moths move in and take right over. It's fun to watch them.

[Shule]

@foxtailferns
We get those moths drinking nectar from our phlox (not this time of year). They look a lot like hummingbirds. I've never seen their caterpillars, though.

[foxtailferns]

Apparently, we have several host plants all around the dianthus--butterfly bush, obedient plant, gaura, and milkweed. I'll for sure be keeping an eye on the tomato plants, though!

[foxtailferns]

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I have some things I'd like to get into the ground, but it stormed again last night and everything is kind of a muddy mess. One of them is a Lemon Meringue Baptisia that I picked up at the nursery this weekend. I've wanted one for a few years but could never find it locally and shipping on plants is always so expensive! I paid more than I usually like to for this, but baptisia is one of my favorites and it's a pretty large plant. I have 4 native baptisia that I (probably misguidedly) transplanted last year. I thought I'd lost them, but they all came up a few weeks ago. I doubt they'll do much this year.

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There's not much to do with the vegetables at the moment. Everything is planted and there's no need to water with all this rain. Walking around this morning, I noticed some of the rampicante squash has come up--still waiting on the Candystick Delicata.

We picked up 12 more fence panels at Tractor Supply this weekend and my partner, Mason, is going to start cutting them down into new tomato cages. We made 8 last year and they worked so well that we decided to use them for all of the indeterminates (except for the 6 I squeezed into the new bed...whoops). Pretty much all of the first round of tomato plants have flower buds now--Juliet, Granadero, Jaune Flamme, San Marzano, Amish Paste, Cherokee Green, White Tomesol, and Black Krim. The dwarves all have them, too. The others were about a week and a half behind, so I should start seeing buds on them soon.

granadero flower.jpg

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The Groovy Tunes and Fat Frogs are almost ready to pot up. The Jochalos are still pretty small. These micros are fascinating to watch.

groovy tunes.jpg

[GoDawgs]

Toffee is such a pretty baby. Nothing like having a good watch cat.

I sure wish we could get some of your rain here but without all that severe weather. We've been dry, dry, dry and today it's 92 with a hot wind. I'll be needing to water everything good later on.

Your plants are looking good. There's something about micros that just makes you want to grow more.

[foxtailferns]

Toffee was a fierce little feral kitten. We've slowly earned her trust and converted her into an indoor/outdoor cat over the years. She's still afraid of everyone else in the world, but she finally seems convinced that we aren't evil, haha.

I wish we could share some of this rain! We're at just over 4" for the week, but I think we're done for a while. It's supposed to hit the 90s here next week--mosquitos won't be far behind, I'm sure.

[MissS]

@foxtailferns you are going to love that Lemon Meringue Baptisia. It is one of my favorite perennials of all time. It never fail to bring a smile to my face when I see it blooming in my garden. That color just glows.

[foxtailferns]

@MissS I think I'm going to try to get it planted in the morning. It's just barely starting to flower and so pretty--I can't wait until it fills out a little.

[foxtailferns]

It has cleared up after a week of storms and today was bright and sunny. It's still a muddy mess outside, but the plants have just loved all of this rain.

I noticed quite a few firsts today!

The first open tomato flower: Granadero, followed by Jaune Flamme this afternoon. Black Krim looks to be next.

granadero flower.jpg

The first comfrey flowers:

comfrey.jpg

The first skipper that I've seen, on a salvia in one of the front yard beds:

skipper.jpg

And the first potter wasp, on some rue flowers in the same bed. I also saw my first bumble, but I wasn't quick enough to snap a photo.

wasp.jpg

[foxtailferns]

Well, after a week of storms followed by a couple of days of beautiful weather, it's 95 degrees today. Not the gradual transition into warmer temps I was hoping for, but at least we've avoided the hail and tornados so far.

All of the first round of tomato plants have buds now, most with open flowers. The dwarves all have buds as well, with about half fully open. And a few of the second round tomatoes are putting on buds--Arkansas Traveler, Illini Star, and Atkinson, I think. Most exciting is the first micro bud--Blaue Zimmertomate! All of the plants just loved the rains last week and everything kind of exploded with growth.

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[foxtailferns]

The beans are up! I'm experimenting with growing them up some bamboo stakes that I put in up against the house. I hope there's enough space between the pole and the wall for them to wrap around. There was a section that washed out in the storms, but I think we probably have 30-40 sprouts at the moment.

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The irises in the sunny bed are almost finished blooming, but the few that I have in the shadier side garden are just starting. A neighbor shared these with us and I've noticed that several other people on the block have them, too. My aunt gave me the columbine as a tiny start two years ago and it's finally taking off. I'd like to try seeding some more of these this fall. The violet wood sorrel is a little volunteer at the base of some baptisia. Wood sorrel is my favorite weed, so I let it go pretty much anywhere that it wants. We mostly have yellow wood sorrel here--I think the violet came along in some soil from my grandmother's old house.

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[foxtailferns]

We have our first tiny tomato! Jaune Flamme is the winner this year. I'm a little surprised to have any fruit set at all with the heat wave that came through so suddenly. Nine cages up now, eleven to go. All of the big pots should have cages by the end of the week. I still need to decide how I'm going to stake/cage the 6 in the new bed...

first tomato 2022.jpg

I decided to try topping the pepper plants this year. With all the wind we get, the peppers have a hard time staying anchored in the pot soil and we had several that were partially uprooted by the end of the season last year. I cringed as a snipped them all off, but most of them are really starting to branch out now. I think this one is an Aura F1. The jalapenos have been slower to respond, but they're putting on a little new growth this week. They may be getting too much shade, I'm not sure.

topped pepper.jpg

[LindaJean]

Wonderful photos- Toffee is a beautiful cat.

[foxtailferns]

@LindaJean Thank you--we love our girl!