This was one of our last spring gardens to go in – two small starter beds. While it suffered in the crazy heat and dry spell that was to come it has started to produce this fall. Sorry to take so long getting the photos up! From the photos you can see the area gets dappled sunlight part of the day which is a bonus in the Texas summer.
A Native Garden: Using cedar logs for a raised bed garden
This fall we installed a unique garden made with native cedar logs. The winter vegetable garden design was done by Amy Crowell and the installation took two days. It turned out to be a beautiful garden structure and we look forward to see the beds filled out with the winter veggies. Congratulation Genny!
We also featured Genny’s compost pile in the slideshow because it a a great design example. The first images show the area before our fall rains and then you see the native weeds in the next images. During the build you will notice we use newspaper as our weed block. We have seen the store bought weed block in many yards and neither weeds nor veggies pay attention to the barrier. The one thing that does suffer from the separation of new landscaping and existing soils are the earthworms. Newspaper is biodegradable, and free and helps kill off the initial weeds but eventually decomposes to allow earthworms into your garden. The mulch and a gardeners diligent weeding will eventually rid that area of weeds. We will rephotograph this garden after a few weeks to see the progress.
Winter in Texas is very mild and the gardening challenges are minimal. If you are thinking of starting a garden, winter is the time…very few bugs, cool days with good sun, and more chances of rain. However, be aware that dry air and wind can desiccate plants as well as the hot sun so pay attention to your watering schedule. Check out our winter advice blog post.
Insects are a blessing and curse for food gardens. Over the past weeks I have pulled hundreds of worms off plants and picked up the scraps of dead plants left after they have moved through a garden. It is an upsetting experience but it is also part of a healthy ecosystem. These worms are actually moth larva and due to the good weather, all plants and animals are doing great. Of course insects reproduce en mass so we are seeing a lot of these chewing worms lately. We expect the worms will go away after a good freeze or cold snap. Meanwhile, try our organic solutions.
1. Organic liquid sprays of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), Thuricide
2. Handpicking from damaged leaves (see photos)
3. Wasps (leave a few nests around to encourage wasps to enter your garden and harvest worms for food-see photos)