growLively

Viva la Chickens!

http://www.nbcdfw.com/around-town/food-drink/Dallas-Hen-Sales-Not-Ready-to-Fly-the-Coop.html

OFA - Ohio Short Course

Last week I was up in Columbus at the OFA conference (Ohio Short Course). The big floriculture convention. There is always much to do and learn as well as new plants and gadgets to discover. Here are a few of the fun things I found. Be aware that some of these new plant varieties may not be out on the market for a while.  Some will be available starting this fall. There were tons of things to get photos of, but these are just a few highlights.

I also did a quick interview with Ellen Wells from Green Profit/Greenhouse Grower mags. On...you guessed it...CHICKENS. lol She Buzzed about it in their e-newsletter and promises a chicken keeping 101 in the next Green Profit issue, for those of you in the industry. http://www.ballpublishing.com/GreenProfit/ReadCurrentBuzz.aspx

 

Lots of new succulents on the market these days. Here was a cool little Aloe named 'Christmas Carol'. And a very cool miniature Cyperus.

 

An absolutely beautiful new Echinacea named 'Tiki Torch' and a super blue new Salvia farinacea hybrid named 'Sallyfun Bluetune'

 

With the millions of coleus out there, I'm not usually impressed with new ones, but 'Chocolate Splash' is really quite lovely. A very cool new Purslane called 'Maraca'.

 

A very distinctively different Mahonia...will make for a nice new small shade shrub option. Although it's cultivar name, 'Soft Caress', gives me the giggles. A big new Gomphrena called 'Fireworks' really caught my eye. The bright pink and yellow blooms aren't really my style when it comes to color, but it looks like it will be a beast in the summer garden.

 

A fancy new trailing Tiarella called 'FM Moonberry'. A fab green wall planted with succulents (sorry ramdom dude in the photo!)

 

Einstein...chicken baby is growing up...

Just a quick chicken shot of the day...my crazy little Einstein. She's grown quite a bit since she first arrived but she's still just as loony. With the addition of new chickens to the flock, Einstein got a promotion. She went from the bottom of the pecking order to thinking she had a couple of newbies to boss around, even though as different breeds they are twice her size. It's hilarious. She stands on top of the food container now and flaps her wings at everyone...defender of the corn...

Cucumber Cornucopia

I Harvested a few cucumbers this afternoon...I realized I have quite the assortment. The large crazy looking ones are Armenian burpless cucumbers. I knew I'd planted a few by seed, but where I thought I'd seeded some extra squash, it was actually these. When you grow lots of different veggies year-round, sometimes you forget what you've planted! Anyhoo, I was glad to find extras of these beauties. The Armenian burpless give you a pretty ruffled edge slice with a sweet flavor. The yellow fruit are Lemon cucumbers. Similar to the flavor you find with a standard slicing cucumber but with a lemony flavor. YUM. This is a lot of cucumber to eat all at once, and there are only so many cucumber sandwiches I can eat in one day. So I'll probably be juicing these in the morning.

Nursery Pot Recycling Program at NHG

FYI, for you gardeners in the DFW area, North Haven Gardens now offers a nursery pot recycling program. AWESOME. Details here: http://www.nhg.com/recyclenhg.htm UPDATE: Just got a response from the Dallas city recycling manager. They say that they now take nursery pots in the blue bins, with the numbers #3-#7. But they grade it as "mixed plastics' and they say they are recycled into things like plastic lumber. I'm not sure if once the plastic is mixed, it can be recycled again. NHG will take #2's, which the city does not, and you can be sure that we will actually be recycing them. With our process, the pots can be recycled over and over again into new nursery pots. 

This is a great service and we're super excited to offer it. We'll take pots/trays from any garden center as long as they bear the proper recycling codes, #2, #5 and #6. Check the details at the link above.

Summer Veggie Harvest...

Meant to post this last week before I trotted off to Columbus, but didn't get the chance. Just a couple of photos of one morning's veggie harvest. That's all I had room to pick that day...I'll be harvesting up a bunch of tomatoes over the next couple of days and pulling some of those tomato plants. I'll also post on how to trench plant summer tomatoes. And no, I haven't forgotten I still owe a fruit tree espallier pots as well! The potatoes are a mix of 'Yukon Gold', one of my faves and 'Kennebec'. I was up at the Ohio short course this past week...I'll post some shots of some cool new plant varieties - as long as you guys understand that some may not be available for a while!

Mad City Chickens...Texas premiere!

FYI, all you chicken lovers, North Haven Gardens will be hosting two free screenings of the Texas premiere of "Mad City Chickens". The first showing will be Saturday August 8th at 2:30 pm and the second Sunday August 9th at 1pm. We'll have free popcorn and AC! If you haven't heard of this movie, and you're interested in urban chicken keeping, you'll want to check it out. Watch the trailers...they'll make you giggle...or cluck... We can probably fit about 120 people seated comfortably in the room, perhaps maybe a bit more, so get there early. First come first served. If demand exceeds our two showing capacity, we'll schedule another one.

And I'll toot my own horn a bit...we'll be showing this movie in Dallas BEFORE Austin...HA. Please...don't Austin up my Dallas...lol.....

Nikki's Tomatoes: Round 2

 Ok, so my first round of tomatoes were lost. I had a hard month and did not keep up with my watering and feeding like I should have. Then, once I got back on track, our lovely TX summer came on and, seriously, who/what can survive 104 degree days and 92 degree nights? For round 2 I am planting 'Sunsugar' (my favorite!), 'Celebrity', 'Green Zebra' and 'Golden Mama'. I planted, watered & fed over the weekend. I also mulched the heck out of everything! I wasn't able to do my irrigation system, but I'll do that in about 2 weeks. I'll post how that goes. I have to go over to Les's and see what she did, then Johnny over at NHG gave me some other good tips and direction as well. Until then, I'll be hand watering as needed. Maybe it'll rain????

 Also, I started my backyard this weekend. I'll be posting before and current picts soon. Included here is our only way we could think of to keep our fab new cannas protected from 150 pounds of dogs. Anyone have any other good ideas? I mean, we've gotta take the fort down at some point! Planted cannas b/c they are beautiful, tropical (as is my theme in back), hardy in not so great soil and supposedly easy to care for. I also sprayed my entire backyard with Spinosad. I find that spinosad is the easiest way to keep my lawn and garden flea, buggie free. NOTE: I don't use ANY sort of flea meds on my 2 dogs and I have NEVER had fleas since spraying with spinosad every so often and also I released beneficial nematodes. Started this all about 4 years ago. I highly recommend both products! 

To be continued...

Urban Chickens...see, I'm not the only crazy one...lol

Check out the Mad Chicken Movie...

http://www.tarazod.com/filmsmadchicks2.html