Final Day of Spring Break

We had a good time seeing family and spending time at the farm. My youngest brother, Derek, made us homemade pizza with a ton of fresh garlic on it which was awesome. My Granddad Green started us on homemade pizza and it's stuck. In fact, it's partially due to ol' Granddad that I'm willing to try this gardening thing out. He had a big garden up at the farm and grew veggies by the bushel and would can many of them. He also got into making pickles and after a few tries got down a really good recipe. I'll never forget him hovering over a hot propane burner in a farm house that had no air conditioning with a big pot full of canned goods. He'd fill a whole wall of canned goods including jams. I hope to follow in his footsteps.

Anyway, Saturday was full of rain so I didn't get to play in the yard yesterday. I got an early start Sunday to get some supplies to redo a flower bed at the front of our property that is looking bad. I knocked out an old stump that finally rotted and planted a Sago palm as the centerpiece. These are great plants as they seem to be indestructible (heat tolerant, drought tolerant, non-edible to deer, disease resistent, etc.) but also evergreen with a rich texture. We had a pretty cold winter (for the Houston area) and they didn't like it but didn't die either. Reading the wiki link, I didn't realize they were Japanese and aren't really palms. Hmmmm, go figure. I surrounded the Sago palm-that's-not-a-palm with many 'Silver Dust' Dusty Millers and then I surrounded those with African Marigolds. All of these plants should do well in the hot Texas summer, not require lots of water and should be animal resistent.