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“While the Neighbor’s Away…The Patch will Play”

ESPatch May 18, 2010 10 comments

What on “earth” was I thinking?

I previously had stopped my hell-strip design escapades selfishly, at the edge of my own property line, and visible line from my front porch…out of sight…out of mind! I quickly realized that it looked totally and completely ridiculous from across the street! Like an 80’s half haircut!

The house next door to me is currently unoccupied, so I thought mmm? Why not? I trudged to my shed for yet another Hell-Strip onslaught to finally finish what I had started. Like anyone was likely to complain as I removed another swath of weed and rubbish ground? Actually the ground in front of my neighbor’s house, was so much better then the compacted Terra-Firma in front of the Patch. The recent rains once again made it easier to turn over the soil.

http://www.guerrillagardening.org/

Oh yes, I was performing some guerrilla gardening on the East-Side, and my Hell-Strip espionage was in full shoveling swing.

“Hell Strips are no joking matter ESP, remember that dreadful green-finger incident some years ago?”

My Hell-strip continues to grow, maybe I will just continue down the entire street, why stop here?

Oh I will tell you…

that’s why.

While I was nibbling away in here I could not resist pruning up this crepe myrtle and palm, and just why did I do this AFTER big brush pick-up? I continued the mounding into this area also, oh yes… I will have more artemesia mountains.

As I was excavating the site, I unearthed this…a female Boll’s sand roach (thanks for the ID Daniel) at <whatsthatbug.com@gmail.com>

Arenivaga bolliana

The downy females have no wings and burrow in the dust under houses and in natural rock shelters where they feed on packrat droppings, of all the strangest things.

This female is dragging her oothica or egg case, a behavior pattern characteristic of most cockroaches. My eldest hobbit kept asking…what is it dragging daddy, look it is dragging something, what IS that? (repeat 16 times). Brrrr!

While I am on the subject of this Hell-strip, I have to warn you about trowels that have these…screws. Have these people never heard of co-molding techniques? I bought this trowel after my old and trusted digging steed (with no screws) mysteriously vanished a couple of months ago, (I suspect it is at the bottom of one of my ponds). After I had gone around the curb to clean out all of the weeds sticking to the edge of the hell-strip, these screws were once again loose, causing the whole trowel to rattle…this gets really, really annoying! The trowel should just come with a small screwdriver already tethered to it.

Okay, calm down, deep breaths…inhale in through the nose, exhale slowly through the mouth…and relax.

Moving on…

I have been waging war on this Vitex for years now, it is finally turning into the large shrub / small tree, that I always wanted. It sort of looks old-fashioned and fits aesthetically with our 1890’s house. Although it does not compare to the trowel on the annoyance graph, this tree will keep you busy. It always grows up annoyingly from the base (as you can see) and needs a lot of up-pruning to keep it in check and good form. Insects swarm over the subtle purple-blue blooms at this time of year.

This purple verbena has also brought in its fair share of insects and small gazelles into the Patch, what?

Is it a flying rodent? A tiny pony perhaps?

Hemaris diffinis

or Snowberry Clearwing Moth,

These large moths are diurnal, that is, active during the day; they are most often seen nectaring at flowers like this one. They hover and dart about, flying both backward and forward just like hummingbirds, but are actually mimicking bumblebees.

Snowberry Clearwing moths are often mistaken for hummingbirds and bumblebees because of their similarities in size and feeding habits. Adult moths have a long, straw-like “tongue,” called the proboscis, which they keep curled under the head. They use it to suck nectar from the flower. The nectar is rich in sugar, which fuels the energy required for hovering, and avoiding having clear photographs taken of it.

Looking like something from a coral reef the new silver growth on this sago palm develops fast considering how slow the plant grows. While I was taking this picture the little piece of dirt on the front right frond appeared to move, see it?…I moved in closer…

Oh yes it was moving alright, and quite fast considering all of the “junk” it was lugging around in it’s trunk. Oh and tell me that is not a roaming eye at the bottom, peering out from under the trash canopy! I think it is!

“Oh very funny ESP!”

Could this be lacewing larvae?

Things noticed this week in the vegetable Patch

Amaranth is on the rise…

…and court jester squash blooms are all over the place, sneaking over pathways, I am constantly tucking them back into their designated beds.

I cannot wait to try these Kungpao peppers.

Finally…

I cut the seed heads from my Gopher plants

euphorbia rigida

today and naturally all of the white blood began to flow. All parts of this plant, including the seeds and roots are poisonous.

“I would never try zis”

Gophers should not be planted near fish ponds as the sap can be harmful to fish if their white blood is spilled.

Inland sea oats are in the process of developing their iconic seed heads.

“Whisper, whisper whisper, Naboo tribe..whisper whisper…The Germinatrix whisper…visiting the Patch…whisper, whisper…photo exhibition in Crimson…how dare you turn your back on me?”

Nothing good can come from this congregation of shiny gossips.

Stay Tuned for:

“I do like to be beside the seaside”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Feather Hugger”

ESPatch Mar 5, 2010 14 comments

This young feather hugger is totally into the feather grass, it jumps from clump to clump hugging and hiding under it.

This cat, according to it’s collar, is called “Nina Coconut,” and it seems like it has adopted the Patch as it’s playground, at least for the time being.

It can also scale my Douglas Fir in seconds to the delight of my youngest hobbit who thinks this is fantastic. It really is quite funny the way it sits on the small branches watching all the goings-on in the Patch with sharp head movements.

These Mexican feather grasses have supplied me with a good crop of babies that have been transplanted all around my pathways. What I have left should be just enough for my front garden endeavors. The loquats are all having a simultaneous growth spurt right now. The paler green new growth looks great set against the mature darker foliage. The cloud-like Arizona cypress, ‘blue ice’ (left) has aromatic, blue-gray leaves/needles that are flecked with white resin. I love this tree and look forward every year to it developing chocolate brown cones, but so far none have ever materialized. This cypress prefers full sun, and thrives especially well in hot, dry environments like Austin. It has a silvery blue color all year round, I love the way this one looks reflected in my feeder pond. The tree gets up to 50ft tall.

Imagine one of these in a hell-strip, under-planted with a mass of artemisia , now that would be a silver statement!

Talking of the feeder pond, this body of water was recently the venue for the “2010 H S R”.

“Husk Sailing Race”. These bamboo husks with their post oak leaf sails work great, flying across the pond on the slightest of breezes.

“That looks like fun Huck”!

“It sure does Tom.”

I did notice this strange bit of oily something-or-other floating on top of the water, perhaps one of the sailing vessels had developed a leak in it’s fuselage?

New martian growth in my main pond

March Kale Felling:

She planted this Kale when it was about an inch tall, it was barely visible above the soil. Today she used the big-girl snippers and cut it down for dinner. There was an element of sadness associated with cutting it down though, I had to keep telling her that she grew it to eat it, so we all could eat it, she just kept saying…”next week, we will eat it next week.” She had grown quite attached to having it around apparently.

And the light shoneth down on the cut kale and peace and order returned the Patch.

Who am I kidding…naturally the freshly cut kale started an immediate fight…“Its mine!“ “No Its mine!” “Get off”! “Its mine” (Repeat until nerves are completely frayed, and temporary insanity has set in.)

The kale was made into an Asian noodle dish, and the grower ate so much of it! This was really surprising as it had quite a bitter taste, just goes to show, food always tastes better if you grow it yourself.

The warmer weather brought out the bees on this blooming rosemary today. He kept insisting that the bees needed a “drinky” from his watering can, which was just an excuse to pour water on a few of them. I grew and wrestled this prostrate rosemary over a cedar carcass while it was young. I am now testing a theory with another young plant to see if this actually forces the plant into a higher growth habit. This one has turned into a monster, it spent the first two years of it’s life braced painfully up on the side of a cedar stump. My theory is that once it has been forced skyward in it’s formative years, it remains like this when mature?

Here is my young test subject…Mohahahaha!

On a closer inspection of the interior I was shocked to find the wreckage of this yellow convertible hung up in it’s interior branches. A Naboo tribal member on a joy-ride perhaps? I couldn’t be sure.

“O,o, makes me so o,o, angry…I did warn them it was a stick-shift.”

Have the tribe succumbed to modern society to the extent that they are now using sports cars to circumnavigate their territorial boundaries? I scoured the ground around the wreck for tiny bodies, but I naturally found nothing. And why the random, angry, Naboo-speaking monkey? I have no idea.

Disturbed, I looked up to see this dwarf conifer blooming it’s very strange flesh colored oddities…this was no comfort.

And finally, (drum roll),

the patch has had a face-lift:

From a flaking white and horrific aqua, to shades of green and brown, oh yes we are all very excited. Spot the hobbit face in the right picture?

The stock tank where the Chevy Tahoe hit will be moved around in front of the now painted electrical boxes (flattened side against the house, naturally)…Well I may as well take advantage of it. I plan to stain the concrete foundation a dark brown to match the window trim. Not quite finished, but it feels so much more Patch-like already!

The containered golden bamboo culms and foliage look amazing set against this green color. An added bonus.

Blast from the Past:

Imagine if we still had to compose our blog content on this?

Released in 1981 by the Osborne Computer Corporation, the Osborne 1 is considered to be the first true portable computer – it closes for protection, and has a carrying handle. It even has an optional battery pack. While quite revolutionary, the Osborne does have its limitations. For example, the screen is only 5″ (diagonal) in size, and can’t display more than 52 characters per line of text. To compensate, you can actually scroll the screen display back and forth with the cursor keys to show lines of text up to 128 characters wide. A little bit like inserting images in WordPress!

Woohoo!

The Osborne was designed with transportation in mind – it had to be rugged and able to survive being moved about. That is one reason that the screen is so small. Designed as a true portable computer system – it can be considered airline carry-on luggage, and it will fit under the passenger seat of any commercial airliner. I love that screen.

I would love to pull out an “Osborne” on a flight, struggle with it, insert the optional battery (you know this would be quite large) and start working on my airline tray. (I wonder if the tray could even take it’s weight)?

Over-sized headphones and some “work related” head shaking, followed by some repeated insertion/ejection of an old floppy disk would complete the in-flight nonsense. Mr Bean could have a field day with this!

Stay Tuned for:

“Toad in the Hole”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.