It's Gardening Time!

Our love of plants is obvious. My home is the only one being consumed by plants! It is nearly complete.

The little garden surrounding the disused fountain is pretty good at maintaining itself. It barely even needs water. I don't water it at all to be honest.

The food garden, on the other hand, requires frequent watering. I'm trying to build more organic matter into the soil so that it can hold more water and this require even less maintenance. The mulch layer is starting to dissipate.

I love watering the old fashioned way, with a watering can. I feel like it delivers the water so much better. Buuuut, and this is a big but, watering with the hose is just so much faster albeit more wasteful. I also don't like how the high pressure water pushes away my mulch layer that I've been trying to build up organically, exposing the precious soil.

At least there will be plenty of new organic matter for the next layer. Everything growing right now will eventually just flatten down and become part of the bed. Yeah... I don't really believe in garden cleanup.

I think I've harvested around 5 blueberries to date. This plant was an experiment to see if I had what it takes to care for an acid-loving plant. I guess it's not that hard, thanks to the acid fertilizer I picked up at an estate sale I went to last year. Now that it's survived a year, I will consider getting a counterpart for it. I'll have to do some research again. I think my variety is Highbush or something like that.

We've also reached the point where raspberry production demands daily harvesting! If I don't harvest them, flies will last eggs in the berries and the maggots feed on them. Pretty weird to me, and gross if you're caught off guard. I just see it as extra protein!

It's exciting after all these years to finally be seeing my goji plants actually turn into bushes and start to produce goji berries! They are a superfood, if you've never heard of them, said to promote longevity. Native to the mountains of China or somesuch, these perennial solanaceous plants are hardy enough to withstand the harsh winters of the Midwest. Last year I got my first 4 berries and was ecstatic. This year it looks like we'll have a couple of orders of magnitude more, I'll say!

The back porch is a timeshare for many plants that spend the winter indoors. The indigo espuelas, self seeded, made a nice addition this year. I like the mutated white ones. These flowers last very long and smell delightful!

The blackberry flowered before the raspberry if my memory serves me right, but the fruit is taking long to set. There's more than last year though so I shouldn't be complaining. It needs mulch. I believe the leaves are curling because it dries out fast.

I really hope I didn't kill one of my most promising bonsai trees, my huisache (sweet acacia). I have hope, because this has happened before. I have since moved it to the shade where it won't continue to completely dry out every single day. I should have done this from the get go.

This one is new. Probably brought over by a squirrel (a good deed they do that's few and far between). It's shorter and different from the other orange ones. I also love how only the bloom is (mostly) in focused and everything else looks like it's being sucked into it.

In other news, an air plant that my sister plucked off a tree in Texas dropped seeds, which I imagine must be almost invisible. Look at how small the seedling is! I still have not identified this species, but it is doing very well in my living room living mounted on my pineapple plant for now ironically haha! It looks a lot like Tillandsia recurvata, which I've brought back from my fatherland before. It is not, though. That species doesn't do well indoors; I can't cultivate it for the life of me which is very frustrating because I consider myself a very good plant dad. I don't know what it is but they always start to fade from their vibrant green eventually to a dead gray.

Think of this next segment as foreshadowing for my next garden post! It is semi related to gardening. I finally made time to arrange the beginnings of an altar to my gnome friends who I believe followed me here from my fatherland! The dry oat grass (and Spanish moss) bed I cultivated myself. I still need to add a few more finishing touches like a small table and maybe more offerings like a little bottle of some liquor.
In return, these little fairy folk are said to grant good luck and will even help around in the garden, provided you leave miniature garden tools around to encourage them. They say a single gnome statue invites 6 or 7 real gnomes to your property. I kid you not, I often hear what sound like tiny footsteps (not rodents) in my room at night and twice I believe I heard tiny voices. Despite getting a little spooked sometimes, I hope to get more comfortable with them and, one day, perhaps lay eyes on them, if they allow it.

And here is my garden selfie! Miss me? It should make up for last time that I did not including one. Hope you all like it. I always put much consideration into them.

Thanks for visiting my garden! I hope you're as happy as I am! I haven't seen a squirrel in weeks! I guess they are just a spring problem when food is scarce for them. Noted.

You haven't heard the last of me this week. Everyday I gather more photos for my next gardening post! I've always wanted to cultivate this and can't wait to eat it too! Stay tuned!

New to the Garden Journal Challenge? Come and join ! I happily invite @theorosa to come and join us if you like! Hope to see you around!