January 2017

January 11, 2017

Today I removed all the basil plants that died from the hard freeze late last week. Ice inside their stems had expanded and broke them into vertical strips.

I took the leaves and fruit off the two main papaya trees by the back fence. It looked like the shorter one was producing new leaves at the top. I pulled down the small papaya tree near the east fence since it never was productive, and it shaded the far east garden bed. Pulling it out of the ground was surprisingly easy.

I had about 25 bags full of leaves on the patio. I moved the previous leaf-shredding pile back to a round mound on cardboard near the back fence. Once that was done, I emptied all the bags to make a long pile where the previous pile had been. I will shred them with a mower once they dry out.

Some of the plants that looked okay after the two freeze days now look bad. I noticed that the two aloe vera plants were sagging and squishy. I have a feeling they died.

The brassicas and beans seem to be recovering, but they do have some damage. I think I will have to remove some of the plants, as well as parts of a lot of the ones that survive.

I removed the last of the dead tomato plants. The arugula that grew between them looks like it's still alive.

I think whatever was left of the ginger and turmeric is now dead.

Some of the herbs, especially the mints, are damaged but probably not dead. The sage is curled some. The oregano and garlic chives look as healthy as ever. I need to check on the lemongrass.

All the leeks and onions are fine.

I pulled up a radish and took a bite. Most of the root was crunchy, but a small area was soft.

Most of the berseem clover is gone. However, all the carrots planted amongst it is in good shape.

The entire patch of sweet potato spinach is lying flat on the ground like a rug. It's surely dead, but I will wait to seem of something comes up from the roots.

The Meyer lemon and the satsuma trees are all damaged somewhat. The Meyer lemon leaves all hang limply from stems. The satsuma leaves are holding themselves up, but many have yellow patches.

January 19, 2017

It rained a lot the last three days, and some areas of Houston flooded. Today the rain was light, with a few sunny times during the day. In the yard, all the dirt is fully saturated. What’s left of the papaya trees are increasingly covered with black and white mold, and I’m not sure what to do with them. Mary from across the street came over and checked my Meyer lemon tree. She thought it would be fine (after the two nights of temperatures in the low 20’s). I just need to clip off the younger stems that have turned yellow.

Cantaloupe-like seedlings have sprouted in my already shredded leaf mold pile, and some are even coming up on the unshredded one. I have put some other seedlings I found in my grocery store compost by the trellises thinking they might want to climb upward.

I rediscovered the small buttercup plants, small enough to serve as ground cover. They could be Ranunculus recurvatus, but I’m far from sure. There are small patches of them in both the front and back yards, both on the east side of the property.

The first few azalea flowers of the year have started to bloom. All of them are low to the ground near the kusamaki on the east side of the garage.

Black medic or a similar clover-like bean plant is growing in larger stands on the sidewalk than they have in the past. I found a sickly annual aster in the same area, with a few injured flowers hanging on their peduncles.

A few shiny new sweet potato spinach seedlings have arisen from the wreckage of the large stand killed in the freeze.

One of my Tuscano kales is recovering nicely from the freeze, but the other one still looks very dead.

A very small fern-like plant is growing on an oak log. I have seen this before. I wonder how large it will get.

January 28, 2017

I went to Buchanan's and bought eight strawberry "Chandler" starts for transplantation, along with several packets of seeds. Of these, I only ended up using the crimson clover and the butterhead lettuce.

I put all eight strawberry plants in the ground, with six in the south side of the fourth bed (currently plot 8 in the rotation), and two in the S bed, which is not in the rotation.

January 29, 2017

I put one of the artichoke transplants in the dirt at the north (back) end of the first bed.

January 30, 2017

• I sowed Berseem clover (Trifolium alexandrinum) all over the 4^th bed and at the north (back) halves of the first and second beds.
• I sowed crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum) all over the clear areas in the 3^rd bed. I made the decision to plant so much clover because the beds need the nitrogen and too much soil has been bare over the last year.
• I planted a red express cabbage seedling in the southern end of the 2^nd bed (plot 4 in the rotation).
• I sowed chard seeds in the north side of the fourth bed (currently plot 1 in the rotation), then realized it was bed 1 and not bed 8 as I was thinking. I left the seeds in the ground, even though the placement was incorrect, because it would have been too much of a pain to remove them.
• I scattered some butterhead “Tom Thumb” lettuce in the north side of the 3^rd bed (plot 7 in the rotation). I will favor it over the clover if they get in a competitive situation.

January 31, 2017

• I took my indoor seedlings out to the patio for a few hours.
• I planted the beet seeds in plot 8, between the onions and the arugula that was there.
• I moved some of the small arugula that was outside the line of the larger ones and replanted them in the S bed. On February 1, they all looked dead, which is not a big deal since I already have plenty.
• I twice watered the seeds I had sowed the day before.
• I pushed some garlic cloves into the soil in the front end of the 3^rd raised bed. I read that one shouldn’t plant store-bought garlic, but I did so anyway.