Cripplers!

I finally got motivated to start all of my fall veggies...again. I probably sewed 10,000 seeds since the last day in July & I had every single one of them die on me about 2 weeks ago. Thank goodness for cool weather! I just got back from a trip to the Texas Hill Country! While I was there I received a large load of Horse Crippler Cactus (Echinocactus texensis). I will be bringing five specimens to market on Thursday. Four are in one gallon pots & one is in a five inch. These are some superb looking cacti. They are very hardy & easy bloomers in spring. They also grow exponentially faster with Louisiana's rain fall than central Texas'. Next Spring I hope to bring some of the larger specimens. When I say large I mean LARGE! Some of these plants are having trouble fitting in a five gallon pot!
In other news...Last week at the market I brought a small collection of seeds for sale. They are all seeds I harvested from plants I grew then packaged them myself. They have been stored properly for the last year & germination rates should be high. This Thursday I plan on bringing seeds to California poppies, Liatris, Texas Bluebonnet, Love in a mist and Red buckeye. The buckeye seeds were collected in the last few days. They are ready to be sewn immediately! Hope to see you at market.
Jesse

bushy germanders!

WILL THIS RAIN STOP?! It has been unseasonably warm even by south Louisiana standards as of late. It is becoming near impossible to grow cool weather crops successfully without a green house. Not to mention every time we get these monsoon style rain storms it washes all the soil and seeds out of my seed flats. I'm giving up until we get some cooler dryer weather. On the positive side...I am going to be selling loads of beautiful one gallon bush germanders (Teucrium fruitcans) this week! I will also be pushing some thin but still stunning Gulf Mulhy grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) along with some three gallon Tulip Poplars (Liriodendron tulipifera) Not much else to report. I have made a few trips to the other location this week. All my one gallon Echinacea, Rudbeckia and Penstemon cobeas will be over wintering there. Hope they like it! I don't know if I have made a rant about the huge cache of buckeye nuts I've come across. Well, they are germinating like mad right now & I am half way pleased to announce that I have a good handful of albinos!!!!!!!!!! I have a feeling they will die do to a lack of chloraphil though. I'll share pictures.

Slacker

I'm getting pretty bad about posting. Sorry about that. I've been sewing flats like mad lately. Unfortunately my lack of consistent attention to all these seed flats, heavy constant rain and extreme heat after a few days of cool weather have been killer on many seedlings. The weather has been great for cuttings though. Lots of roses have been rooting very nicely! I've also been potting up trees and grasses into larger pots. These include Tulip Poplars, Sycamores, Persimmons, Gulf Muhly and Texas Bluegrass. These guys are beginning to look terrific! I have recently commandeered a source for seed to one of the Native Buckeyes (Aesculus pavia). The seeds are germinating a lot more quickly than normal. I will leave with a picture of them.