The hummingbirds finally started showing up last week. Yay! I was really surprised at how late they finally made it to our garden this year. I have lots of plants in the front garden they can feed on, such as the Rattlebox tree in the photo, Salvia guaranitica 'Black & Blue', Angelonia, Autumn sage, Salvia 'Mystic Sprires' and so on. We also hang a feeder or two near the front door. We currently have two females that are either competing for the turf or are youngin's from the same nest. I think they are nesting in a large crapemyrtle next to the house. They put on a show each morning at about 8am, where they will zip around the yard together. On Sunday morning, I came face to face with one.

Hummingbirds will make visual associations with people, especially ifthey see you around their feeding area consistently for about a month.They you might find they'll come right up to you or feed in yourpresence without being afraid. Good times. I tried getting some photos of them on Sunday, but couldn't get a clear shot. Will keep trying...

Nature takes care of things for you! So if you happen to be less than aggressive about getting your okra harvested on time, you'll find that the pods will dry on the plant and drop to the ground. There the seeds will germinate, giving you your next fall crop of okra plants. Convenient, eh? Now is the time to plant either new okra transplants or start them from seed for fall harvest. I just do mine the lazy way!

It's tomato hornworm season. You know, those big fat green striped caterpillars you find on your tomatoes right about now? The ones with the big horn on their backside? Yep. If you and I were having this conversation together...I'd probably tell you that's some big, fat, meaty, moist, juicy larvae...LOL. You have to be careful when you pick these guys off your plants. If you're not, and you squeeze just a little too tight, they will regurgitate lots of green digestive juices on you a la Alien style. No joke. I usually pick off the tiny branch they are latched on to in order to grab them. Then...they go to the chickens!

Exhibit A: The hornworm. Exhibit B: Mona licking the hornworm, then grossing out.

Honkers turns up her nose at it. Eunice gives it a try...then gives up.

Phyllis shows it who's boss. LOL

By the way, hornworms do turn into very cool sphinx moths...in case you're wondering.

So Are They Cumelons or Melumbers?

Even us horticulturists get sloppy in the garden. Ok, we're probably the worst. So I planted some 'Lambkin' melons in a spot that happened to be near some Armenian burpless cucumbers I'd seeded. In my defense, I'd forgotten I'd seeded the cucumbers there. Well...I've ended up with some interesting, ehem, hybrids. My friend Carolyn, a gardener and artist, drew such a fab little comic about me, my garden, and my cross-pollinating squash and zucchini. I'll have to find it and scan it. That was back in the early 90s. Guess I still haven't learned my lesson. LOL

They had the most lovely fragrance of both melon and cucumber. This might actually be a good combo! Not enough flesh for me to actually eat so I gave them to the chickens. They scarfed them down to the rind. Glad someone enjoyed them!

I brought home some mealworms last week for the gals. You'd think I was Jesus. Want your chickens to think you're their new best friend? Mealworms! They'll crawl all over you (the chickens that is, lol). Here are just a few shots of the gals these days. They are still growing. While Eunice is just now old enough to be laying, I think the hot temperatures are keeping her from doing so just yet. Hopefully, in the next few weeks as night temps come down, I may see my first egg from this crew.

August is Time to Start Seeds

I know it's still 100 degrees, but it's time to start seeds! If you start now, you'll get a good start on your fall garden and have time to plant two or three successions of crops for a winter-long harvest of cool season crops. I'm just going to give a basic run-down of what you can do now.

You can also refer to my year-round planting date chart for North Texas

Warm season crops round 2 (or 3): You can direct seed a second round of warm season crops such as bush beans, squash, zucchini, melons, corn, snap pole beans, pumpkin, and cucumbers. You can also still plant seeds or transplants of okra and peppers right now. You can harvest these crops till your first freeze.

Cole crops: Broccoli, cabbage, kale, chard, collard greens, kohlrabi, cauliflower, and more. You'll want to start these seeds mid-August indoors with your handy seed starting equipment. Seeds need supplemental light so make sure to use a good setup. Then you'll plant your first round into the garden in September. You can start a second round of seeds two weeks after the first to have another succession planting. Once your seedlings have rooted into the bottom of the seed starting cell or pellet, you'll pot them up into a 4" size pot to grow a larger root system, then after plants are rooted in, you transplant them into your garden.

Herbs: Start seeds indoors of cool season herbs like parsley, dill, and fennel. You might want to wait a bit, say until the end of the month to start cilantro, as even tiny seedlings will bolt too fast in any amount of heat. You can also plant transplants right now of many herbs like basil, oregano, sage, thyme, chives, etc. Plant bulbs of garlic starting in September. Seeds of onions (not slips, which should be planted in January) can be started indoors or in the garden in September/October.

Salad greens: You can start direct seeding salad greens into the garden in early September, depending on temperatures. If it's still in the 90s, wait until the middle of the month, then seed into the garden. Remember that lettuce seeds need light to germinate, so don't cover their seeds with soil when you plant them. Simply press them into the surface of the soil and keep moist until germination. You can also start them indoors if you want to get a head start, but they're so easy to direct seed that's usually what I do. Then you can continue seeding salad greens through late fall, and then again starting in February.

Seed starting equipment: I use the JumpStart system from Hydrofarm because the lighting is perfect for seeds, the lamp can be adjusted to different heights, and it's good for small spaces. We do sell it at NHG. You can use small trays with a seed starting soil mix, or the little compressed pellets from Jiffy. I use those a lot and they work great. Make sure you have a humidity dome (plastic cover) for your tray. If you're using pots or pellets, make sure you have a watertight seed tray to set them in so you can cover them with the dome. The picture at left is only one example of the many different options available. Sometimes you just have to experiment to find the option that works best for you. Also, a seed starting heat mat is necessary once you get into fall and winter, and you're starting seeds for spring planting.

Welcome to my little corner of the gardening blog universe. I originally started this blog as a way for my good gardening buddy, Carolyn, and I to keep up with our gardening goings on. She prodded, I complied. Gardening has a way of keeping people connected even over long distances. It's always fun comparing her Brooklyn garden and my Texas garden. After a little time went by, I found the blog had evolved into a great way for me to keep track of what I do in my garden and when...which as a professional horticulturist I rarely seem to have time to do properly! It helped keep me a little more organized as well as provided inspiration for my magazine writing. I hope you enjoy my garden antics and I'm honored to be of help.

August is usually when I go on a "gardening vacation"...it's just so darn hot here! (Although we have been getting some unexpected and very welcome rain the last few days.) Because I'm just not going to do a whole lot of work out there right now, I plant a few perennials that I know will look great in the heat and drought, even if for just the month of August. My favorite "August only" bloomer is the Philippine Lily (Lilium formosanum). It looks just like an Easter lily and has the most wonderful fragrance. The bright white blooms look fantastic in the evening and at night, so plant in areas where you might sit outside at those times. Once established they don't take a lot of water (in fact they'll rot on you with too much), can be planted in full sun and look great with other late summer bloomers like salvias and Mexican petunias. They'll bloom for about three weeks, which may not seem long but is totally worth it. Plants usually start blooming the very end of July and bloom through mid-August, in the DFW area.

PC: Leslie F. Halleck

Philippine lilies are a bit obscure, so it can sometimes be difficult to find the tubers. Once you have them, they can be multiplied by division of the tubers or the many seed the plants produce. The typical variety grows large, up to about 5 or 6 feet tall. The one I have in my garden is a rare dwarf variety that gets about 3 to 3 1/2 feet tall only. I procured this through my plant geek network and haven't actually seen the dwarf readily available for sale many places. But I'm going to collect a bunch of seed from it in a few weeks and we'll start propagating it.