August 2013

August 23, 2013

I first broke ground on my first garden bed, finishing the day with a 6'x2' rectangle. It took me a long time to decide where to put the first bed.
Click to see it bigger!
I started a wood pile from broken branches near the northeast corner of the back yard, where the grass met the star jasmine. Several goldenrain tree saplings were poking out of the star jasmine.

Sometime in June or August, I moved all the soil I brought over from my previous home to the back yard nook, moving the cardboard it was on as well. There, I mixed some of it with the grass and sticks laying around. On August 23, I added the grass I dug up when creating the bed and made another pile in the nook, I would add other materials so the grass pile served as a kind of compost pile.
The Persian silk tree by the a/c compressor was about two feet tall, and a few tufts of dallisgrass were growing in the nook.

 When I moved the soil, I could see a semi-bare patch in the grass by the backyard gate, where the soil had been. Suppressing the grass allowed a lot of other plants to get established later.
The leaves of the lilies in the back yard beds were near full length, but the plants were not flowering. St. Augustine grass and erect dayflower had invaded those beds. 

 Erect dayflower and Texas sage were flowering.

August 24, 2013

I completed the initial keyhole bed.

August 25, 2013

I planted the following transplants in the new bed:

I sowed seeds of these vegetables in the same bed:
  •  Carrot ‘Danvers 126’
  •  Romaine ‘Parris Island Cos’
  •  Romaine ‘Freckles’
  •  Beet ‘Early Wonder’ 
  •  Spinach 'Monstrueux de Viroflay'
  •  Radish 'French Breakfast'
I put sticks around the edge of the new bed and around the relatively grass-free area surrounding the water oak. Along with the Texas sage and loropetalum, some dallisgrass, basket grass, dayflower, goldenrain tree seedlings and perhaps other forbs were growing.
I placed the lantana in the northwest corner of the back yard, close to the fence in a very small gap in the star jasmine. It was flowering when I bought it in the store.
I pulled some star jasmine down off the back fence, but didn't pull it from the ground. 

August 28, 2013

Radish ‘French Breakfast’ emerged.

August 31, 2013

All of the plants whose seeds I sowed on August 25 had at least one seedling emerge, along with what appears to have been a Persian silk tree seedling.
The Texas lantana was sickly from being transplanted.
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