Dallas Fruit and Vegetable Grower

Blackberries in Full Bloom in Dallas

Our blackberry bushes have been in full bloom for the last three weeks, with some of the earlier blooming varieties already forming small berries and the later varieties blooming in strength.  As previously posted, we have Navaho, Arapaho, and Ouachita.  All are thornless and were developed at the University of Arkansas.

The plants on the south side that get a fair amount of shade have done much better than the plants on the north side of the property that get significantly more sun.

Here is a photo of one of the bushes on the south side.  You can see that it is loaded with blooms.

Here is another photograph of the bed of blackberries on the south side of our front yard.  There are two rows of blackberry bushes interplanted with pear trees.  At both ends of the bed, we have a couple of elderberry bushes.  This photograph was taken shortly after a morning rain, so the plants are heavy with dew.   Blackberry bushes in the landscape have a very arching characteristic.   They have somewhat of a wilder look to them, so you would want to plant them in a side bed as opposed to a planting bed in front of the house.

 

 

Here is another photograph of the same bed taken in 2010, two years ago, from the opposite direction.  The bed has really filled out during that period of time.

 

 

Figs

 

Several of our figs are making some big, good looking breba fruit.  I am expecting a big crop of fruit from our five fig trees this year.

We have three trees that were planted in 2010 as 5 gallon trees from Bob Wells Nursery and now have reached a good size.   This will be the first year of production for them.  They are LSU Purple, Black Mission, and Texas Everbearing.  The photograph above is of an unripe fruit from our Texas Everbearing fig tree.

We have two other fig trees that were planted in 2009 and are really large by now.  When I ordered them, I thought they were Brown Turkey and Celestial varieties.  However, a few other trees that I bought from this nursery were not what the nursery represented them to be, and based on the fruit characteristics, I think these two fig trees were also mislabeled.  The fruit from these two trees has always had a light, yellowish-green skin with a whitish-light pink interior, which is inconsistent with what a Brown Turkey or Celestial fig should look like.   I am not certain what type of fig trees these, in fact, are; however, I suspect that they might be Conadrias or  Lattarula/Italian Honey  or Peter's Honey figs.

Here is an old photograph of a ripe fig from one of these trees.

 

 

Fragrant Spring Flowers and Bushes in Texas

 

When we planned the garden for our Dallas suburban yard several years ago, we wanted to incorporate as many fragrant plants and shrubs as possible.

Many of these are not common to Texas but are still suitable for zone 8.

One of those plants is the Beautybush (not to be confused with the Beautyberry).  It is an old-time favorite that you don't really read a lot about nowadays or find in nurseries.

Now in their fourth year in the ground, our two Beautybushes are blooming for the first time.  They were originally planted as very small one gallon plants.  Today, they are still fairly sparse but reach four to five feet in height with arching branch patterns.  

The photograph above is of a branch filled with Beautybush blooms.  The blossoms are lightly fragrant and can be detected from a short distance away.  As the shrubs get larger over time, they should project much greater fragrance in our yard.

Elsewhere in the garden, our fragrant flowering tobacco (Nicotiana) have the greatest horsepower for filling the yard with a lovely smell in the evenings.  We have approximately twelve of these plants in the back yard, and I would like to plant many more.  When the breeze catches their fragrance in the evening, they fill the entire backyard with their smell.

 

While still fairly immature, our mock oranges are also about to bloom and will be counted on to fill the yard with their citrus-blossom smells.

In the front yard, several Firewitch Dianthus are big-time producers in the morning and late afternoon, and I would love to fill every plant border with them.  They are hardy and drought tolerant and among my favorites.

As the year continues, we will also be counting on the following plants and vines for fragrance in our yard and garden:  magnolia stellata, dwarf fothergilla, confederate jasmine vines, passionflower vines, summersweet bushes, hosta plantaginea, elderberry bushes, butterfly bushes, purple coneflowers, lavender plants, and sweet autumn clematis, among others.

I also have loose plans to start heliotrope, mignonette, and additional flowering tobacco from seed. I would love to fill the backyard borders with them.  With any luck, although the heliotrope and mignonette are not winter hardy, they may reseed.

Red Admiral Invasion - More Butterflies in 2012

One thing is certain for 2012, I have significantly more butterflies this year than in year's past.  Perhaps it is because the caterpillar and chrysalis population fared better with the milder winter .  Perhaps it is because the weeds, herbs and plants, which their caterpillars depend upon, thrived with  the milder winter and have provided a greater food supply.  Or perhaps, we have a smaller wasp population this early in the year permitting more caterpillars to metamorphose into butterflies.  Whatever the reason, we have a ton of butterflies of all different varieties in our garden this year.  (In the last few years, our local butterfly expert, Dale Clark, has written several articles about how past droughts and wasp infestations have impacted the caterpillar populations:  article 1 and article 2.)

The other day, I went out into the backyard where our Little Henry Sweetspire bushes are in full bloom, and I was surprised to see a multitude of beautiful Red Admiral butterflies.

When I say a multitude, I am talking 15 to 25 of these guys flying around in a pretty limited area.

They have remained in this area of the backyard for about a week now.

I don't recall seeing Red Admirals in the past.  Perhaps I have seen them before and just confused them for Commas or Questionmarks.  They are much smaller than I expected.  With a name like "Red Admiral", I expected a large butterfly about the size of a Black Swallowtail or Giant Swallowtail; however, these are relatively small in the neighborhood of 2 to 3 inches -- about the size of a Comma or Questionmark.

The photograph below shows a portion of the area in our backyard where they are feeding.  In this part of the yard, we have Little Henry Sweetspire, Encore Azaleas, and Japanese Maples.  You can see one of the japanese maples that recently died on us during the torrid heat of last summer.

 

 

 

The Sweetspire have pretty, white racemes of flowers that have a mild, sweet smell.  In the evening, you can just barely get a trace of their scent as you pass by.  Up close, the flowers have a noticeable and pleasant smell.

 

 

Here is a photograph of a Red  Admiral feeding on a sweetspire flower.

 

The following video does not do justice to the number of butterflies that we have flying around.  Indeed, you can only see 5 to 6 of them flying around in the video, but you can see them feeding.

 

 

 You can adjust the resolution of this video up to 1080p

 

*** Added on 4/18/2012

If you look around the internet, it appears that Red Admirals are appearing en masse all around North America this Spring.  Interesting.  Check out these sites:

Red Admiral Site 1

Red Admiral Site 2

Red Admiral Site 3

Red Admiral Site 4

 

 

Vegetable Garden Photos - Late March

 

Here are a few photographs of our vegetable garden in early spring.  In the foreground above is our Swiss Chard.  In the second and fourth large beds to the left, we are growing tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers that are still very immature.  In the third large bed to the left, we have sweet yellow and red onions growing.   On the right side of this shot are our herb beds.

 

 

In this photograph, you can see our cilantro that wants to go to seed because of our unseasonably warm spring weather, along with immature fennel, dill and parsley.  You can also see one of our artichoke plants on the right, and our asparagus plants that look mature even this early in the year.  We have cucumbers and squash growing in the middle bed with the support towers.

 

 

 

This photograph shows our sweet yellow and red onions that were planted from starts.  They look to be doing well.

 

Our spring vegetable garden also has some color from the earlier blooming perennials that surround the garden.

 

 

Here is a vew looking west.  The vegetable garden is bordered by pear, peach, pluot, cherry, fig, jostaberry, gooseberry, wolf berry, honeyberry, pineapple guava, huckleberry, and kiwi bushes and trees.