This Strawberry Sports Gorgeous Blooms

Have you checked out the newish series of strawberries called 'Fragoo'? So lovely...so far. The series comes in three colors 'Deep Rose', 'Pink' and 'White'. The pitch on this series is the large ornamental blooms you get on the plants. Plus, they are day-neutral so should be ever-bearing (but most strawberries will still take a break during our hottest months.)

Here is a photo of 'Frago Deep Rose' in my garden. I'll be testing them out for fruit production in my veg garden. Now, strawberries are perennials so you need to give them a dedicated sunny bed. In our climate, a couple hours of afternoon shade is usually appreciated.

This series is supposed to be particularly suited to containers, because of the showy flower sand 3-ft runners. There is still time to get strawberries planted in the garden in N. Texas, but I'd recommend doing it soon so plants have some time to put down roots before it gets very hot (and garden centers run down on availability). Enjoy!

As my chicken coop and chicken yard continue to evolve in their needs, I've started adding blooming vines to the fence we built to keep them out of the veg garden. I planted three of these Maypops, or Passiflora incarnata, (plus a couple of P. caerulea 'Blue Queen') along the fence to not only provide some shade for the girls, but also to camouflage the fence dress things up a bit with the showy flowers.

After an application of recycled chicken litter fertilizer, these beauties have taken off and are starting to throw off a number of blooms. Maypops also produce small orange edible fruits (hence the name), which will make great treats for the chickens!

Butterflies love passion vine so planting one or two is a great way to attract them to your garden. There are many different species and varieties to choose from. In mild winters they may keep most of their foliage...in colder winters they'll die to the ground, then re-emerge in spring. Passion vines are perfect for a sunny location, but they will tolerate some dappled shade or late afternoon shade.

When you're a plantgeek like me...there's nothing better than getting a stunning plant specimen for your birthday from one of your bestest plantgeek friends. Wait, maybe there is one thing better...getting TWO stunning specimens for your birthday! Now, my birthday was back in December...and it took a bit to get these two beauties moved to my house, but when they did show up (which was a surprise), I can't tell you how happy I was.

These are two giant specimens of 'Changsha' Tangerines, Citrus reticulata, one of the most cold-hardy varieties. Grown from seed by my bestie Jimmy, who so sweetly bestowed them up on me. Now, these pots are giant. And heavy. And I'm sure it was quite the comedy to watch my husband and I move them from the front driveway to the back yard. Not to mention, they are covered in giant thorns. That was fun...but well worth it!

'Chengsha' are prolific producers of seedy but very juicy tangerines. Although the parentage isn't totally confirmed, they could be a cross between C. reticulata and C. ichangensi. The name Chengsha could also be just the name of the place from whence the variety originated and not necessarily the variety name. Can't seem to find consensus on this. But, what is true is that these lovely citrus trees are incredibly cold hardy. Seed grown plants tend to be more cold hardy than vegetatively produced specimens. These two particular plants made it through the winter of 2010...with all that ice and 10-12 degree temperatures, even in containers (hence the giant thorns which tend to come on under stress or cold damage). Plants will grow 10-12 ft, so are perfect for container culture if you don't have space in the garden. Full sun...a bit of afternoon shade appreciated.

Jimmy knows what a huge citrus freak I am. So I'm sure he must know how tickled pink I am have to add these beauties to my citrus collection (Thank you Dahling). I hope with the babying I'm currently giving them I'll see a nice harvest this winter. Tangerine juice here we come!

Update on Nursing the Abandoned Baby Silkie Chickens

After much nursing, antibiotics (for CRD which they all came with), babying and such...the four surviving baby Silkies that I'm fostering are thriving. Boy have they grown. Of course they'll never compare in size to my other big girls, but they sure are fluffing out. They are most likely around 5 months old at this point, maybe a few weeks older than that, but no way to be totally sure. I also still can't be sure whether they are boys or girls...or which are which...but I do have my suspicions about at least one of them..

I think this one may end up being a boy...mostly because "he" is bigger than the rest and always has been, plus he has more distinctive colored feathers down his chest. Which can be a characteristic of a rooster. Plus, his tail feathers that are growing in seem to be more pronounced. But still...who knows.

This partridge colored bird was the runt of the litter. "She" was pretty tiny when we inherited her, and she's still a bit smaller than the rest, but has managed to catch up pretty well (and she's still bigger than Beezus, lol). Beez is not to thrilled with the co-lapping in this photo...but don't they color coordinate so nicely? I know. I have a problem.

Hopefully, given another month or so, I'll be able to better tell the girls from the boys. If I have girls, I am going to try to keep them...although integrated them in with the rest of the larger flock could be very challenging. Any roosters will have to be re-homed, as Dallas city ordinance prohibits us from keeping roosters. I may have one taker already but if not, and I have Roosters to re-home, I'll post an update to see if any of you have a home for them!

Smart Tomato Growers Plant Early

If you've been to any of my tomato classes, you know that I always say "plant early, and stop planting by the end of March" when it comes to tomato transplants. Weather and temperatures permitting, the earlier the better. This year, we've had a fabulously long season for planting tomatoes.

Some might say that the mild winter caused timing problems for planting tomatoes..but thats not the case at all. The standard planting window still applied, but with no hard freezes in March those who planted in late February and early March should now be reaping the benefits of having fruit already setting on their plants; without having had to do the work of covering plants. Maybe this is a welcome payback for last year's nasty tomato season?

But as day/night temperatures rise, you'll soon lose the opportunity for your plants to mature, flower and set fruit in time. In the Dallas area your best bet is to get the last of your tomato transplants in the ground this weekend, or take your chances with a reduced harvest. If you live farther North, up into zone 7, then you'll have another week or so to play with...unless temps rise quickly in your area.

Some girls have a closet full of shoes. Some girls, like me, have a garden full of plants and a shed full of tools. Shoes shmoos. Sometimes a girl just has to buy herself a nice set of fancy hand-forged iron and wood garden tools...

These beauties are from a line called Iron & Wood Garden Tools from Fisher Blacksmithing in Montana. They have a few other nifty tools as well.

Drool...Now, let's see if I can bring myself to actually get them dirty...lol!

Well, despite a week of intensive nursing...nose, eye and rear-end cleaning, applications of VetRx, several doses of antibiotics...this poor little baby passed away last night. I do describe details of this kind of chicken care on my blog, so that those of you who are either new chicken keepers, or are thinking about it, get a broader perspective of the things you'll have to deal with once you own a backyard flock.

For those of you not in the loop, this was the box of baby silkies dropped off at the garden center a week ago, that I've taken home to foster. This particular bird was already sick when they were left with us. It wasn't severe yet, but I could tell just by the way it hung back from the rest of the birds, and was a little "crusty" around the nostrils, that something was going on. I had to separate him/her immediately.

It's not ideal to have to isolate a young bird like this. They are social, and rely on eachother's body warmth for good health and vigor. But you can't risk the rest of the flock with any kind of respitory condition, like this baby had. After the first night we had him, he took a nosedive. Poor thing was barely able to breathe and you could tell there was probably fluid in the lungs. Based on symptoms, I figure this was probably CRD (chronic respiratory disease) or penumonia. It did not appear to be coryza, and it has as of yet not shown up in the remaining birds, thankfully.

It took me a couple of days to get the antibiotics, so there's no telling that if I'd been able to administer them earlier if it would have helped. He may have just been too sick from the get go. I cleaned his nostrils and eyes daily with VetRx, an herbal oil...and had to do some extensive vent (rear-end) cleaning due to build up. Now look, unless you are prepared to clean chicken butt...which is a pretty nasty thing, you shouldn't get chickens, lol. I even trimmed the feathers around his rump so that no more would get caught up in them. Poor, poor baby. Yesterday, I started administering a .1 ml dose of Tylan 200 (antibiotics). He got 3 doses, and appeared like he just might be improving last night...only for us to find him gone this morning. Now, you take a risk treating any bird with antibiotics, as it's hard on their liver, etc. Some birds can be allergic to them, although its rare. It's hard to know if he was just too far gone, or if the Tylan put him over the edge. Normally, this antibiotic is administered via needle, but this bird was just too tiny, too thin, and without enough breast muscle to support repeated injections. While oral doses aren't as effective as injections, they can still be effective.

All I can say is I tried my best. We even kept him inside in our warm office, where he at least had company and someone to chat at him in his/her last few days. What a heart breaker.

Bon voyage little birdie!

Now, the rest of the gals/girls are trotting along just fine. They are putting on weight and fluffing out. They've also gone crazy for the dried mealworms I've started feeding them (thinking about carrying those up at the garden center). I'll post some video of them tomorrow.

What a week of chicken drama. Yes...chicken drama.

As I posted last week, I lost my favorite and oldest chicken, Phyllis the Polish hen, to a hawk attack. With the drought of last summer, there seems to be a lack of small prey to go around for the big birds of prey.

Early Sunday morning, I got a call from my store manager at the garden center...someone dropped off a box of 5 Silkie chicks on the doorstep...no food, no water, left overnight. SIGH. The box said 3-4 months, but I'm not sure they are quite that old. Of course, he wanted to see if I would take them...we can't keep them at the nursery (we're already full). How do I say no? Now, this was not what I was planning to do with what I thought was going to be my one precious day off...but back up to the garden center I went.

Now, back to that hawk that did Phyllis in. She's a beast...big and fast. Talons about the size of my hands. Just as I was getting ready to leave to go up to the garden center, I heard a pretty big ruckus outside...so I RAN. There was the hawk dive attacking my silver Wyandotte, Kim Deal, inside their run. I managed to get the hawk off and out without chicken in talons. What was left behind was a huge pile of chicken feathers and a traumatized Wyandotte. She let me pick her right up. After inspection, I realized she had a couple of big gashes down to the muscle, but no punctures through the body, that I could find. Not cool, but I was amazed she's survived at all. I treated her wounds with BlueKote...then decided she would need stitches or sealing. I opted to seal her wounds with super glue...yep, super glue. I watched her for a while then put her back in the coop. She eventually ate and drank a little, so at that point I figured I'd just have to wait and see. She seemed more energetic today, but I'll keep cleaning the wounds and may start her on antibiotics in a couple of days if there appears to be any sign of infection.

Back home I arrived a bit later with 5 baby Silkies to foster. It's hard to say no to baby silkies...I mean, how cute. Here's problem number 1: I don't have room for 5 more birds. I can probably hang on to two of them, but the other three would have to go. But here's problem number 2, the bigger problem with silkies: It's almost impossible to properly sex them...until they start crowing, or lay eggs. There are some physical characteristics that can lead you to assume male or female...but even then you can be proved wrong. Roosters are illegal in Dallas. So you see my dilemma. There is one buff chick that is significantly smaller than the rest, so there is a chance she is a she...but the rest could be boys.

I don't know if this person who abandoned these babies decided they just didn't want them or decided they are all boys...in which case it's now my problem-I'll have to raise them for months to get to a point where I'll figure this out for sure..then if I do find I'm stuck with 5 roosters, I'll be in violation of city code and be responsible for trying to find them all homes. Even worse, I'll be attached to them. NICE. Really? Really.

So I set the babies up in my small mobile coop with a heat emitter. They'd obviously never seen the outside before, and it took them about a day to figure out they could walk on the soil and learn how to scratch. So cute. Unfortunately, when I got up to check on them this morning one of the babies was showing obvious symptoms of bad respiratory distress. Sick baby chicks are not a good thing...it usually means they're on their way out of the world. And you have to separate them from the rest of the gang so whatever they have doesn't spread. So now the poor sick baby is in it's own box in the garage, but it's not doing great. I've treated it with VetRx to try and relieve some of the breathing problems, so we'll see how it's faring in the morning. I'm sure I'll work some kind of magic that enables it to pull through...and then it will turn out to be a rooster, LOL. This is how these things work.

We'll be covering the entire chicken yard with bird netting, in hopes of keeping the hawk out...hopefully, she'll move on or find herself otherwise occupied...she ain't takin' any more of my gals!

Whew....I'm tired.