Welcome to the Boomtown

Over the Fourth of July holiday we traveled against the tide (pun, intended) to the Gulf Coast. When I first booked the tickets back in April, I was looking forward to introducing my baby to more of my family and to one of my favorite places on Earth: Pensacola.

As you might have heard, an environmental catastrophe of epic proportions the likes of which the world has never seen and government regulation-willing we'll never see again has bespoiled (and continues to defile) my heart's land.

Paths for workers on the beach, pedestrians on the left, ATVs on the right

We chose to continue with our plans because the baby would only get bigger, relatives were traveling from near and far to meet him, and because we figured everyone in that part of the country needed something else to look at besides the oil in their water and on their beaches.
I can't adequately express what the area, particularly my grandparents' house in Gulf Breeze on Pensacola Bay, means to me. As a place, it holds layers upon layers of memories, from the days we kids (my brother, my sister, and I) traveled to stay there and to eat fried mullet--freshly caught by Pop and freshly fried by Grammy--for breakfast to the day eight years ago when friends and relatives also traveled from far and wide to celebrate our wedding to the day five years ago when we spread my mother's ashes in the water in front of the place that was also her favorite and filled with her own memories of eating her father's freshly caught mullet and celebrating her little sister's wedding to the day last week when I tried to explain all this to my newborn son.

I didn't adequately explain my feelings for this place to him nor will I do it here.

Instead, I took pictures. I took pictures of the beach where we got married; it's now part of the "oil impact area." Hurricane Ivan wiped out of the road to that beach in 2004. It took years for the road to be rebuilt. This was our first return visit.I took pictures of the workers cleaning the beach,putting oil-soiled sand into plastic bags produced with petrochemicals, ensuring that BP will still make a profit as it desecrates my mother's grave.I took pictures of the tour bus now used to transport workers to clean the beach.Back in Gulf Breeze, I took pictures of the booms out in front of the house. (My grandparents' house, now occupied by my aunt and uncle, is the only house I know with two fronts: the waterfront and then the "out front" where the front door is. Confuses the heck out of visitors but those of us who grew up there know exactly which front anyone means at any time.)

I took pictures of the "beach towels"--provided by the city, not BP--vainly trying to protect the sand. In the end, I decided I'd just rather show you pictures of why I consider this area one of the most beautiful in the world.

"A Hornworm Ate My Baby!"

When I first started gardening, I grew only vegetables. I considered myself more of a cook who gardens than a gardener who cooks. Then I started growing herbs (still the best bang-for-your-buck edible in my book), which had the added bonus of attracting caterpillars.

After allowing those caterpillars to maul my herbs (here are my thoughts on caterpillar etiquette), I certainly wanted them to stick around as butterflies so I added the final piece of the puzzle: a food source for the butterflies. Last year I had a few Gulf fritillaries, usually in pairs, regularly visit. This year I've found a lot more metamorphised friends in the yard, despite killing three butterfly bushes.

At the top of the post is a female black swallowtail caterpillar. Either my admonitions last fall worked or the butterflies just couldn't resist all the blooming poppies and larkspurs.

I can't tell for sure (probably because I'm distracted by the neighbor's truck bed/trailer in her backyard) but I think this is a male black swallowtail butterfly. The female has more blue on her.A first for my garden, and a bit of a surprise, was this monarch. I never got a chance to plant more milkweed for the caterpillars to replace the ones I'd killed (yes, I killed a plant called a weed), but one butterfly just couldn't resist the flowers .I was even more surprised to see this eastern tiger swallowtail. I'd never seen one of these in my neighborhood until I stalked one the day before on a walk. I guess my entreaties of "here, little butterfly" were more appealing than creepy, and it followed me home.I hadn't even thought about providing shelter for resting butterflies, but due to my lazy busy with the baby days, these poppy stalks provide great cover. (I had managed to find time to snip the seedheads.) It took me a while to notice the fritallaries snoozing on them. There are two hidden in the picture below.Another unexpected butterfly sighting was this red admiral on the dog vomit slime mold covering my strawberries. The butterfly makes even vomit mold look pretty.No? Yeah, not working for me, either. I guess there limits as to what butterflies can beautify. The red admiral looks much better on the larkspur.Of course, before the butterflies arrive, there must be caterpillars. While I am happy to provide food for the swallowtail caterpillars and the Gulf fritallaries, I draw the line at the tomato hornworms. This gigantic hornworm (actually found by the dog on my inland sea oats ) provoked quite a flurry of tweets. (I still wish @Indygardener had come down and killed it for me.) It was huge--about five inches long and as thick as the middle finger I extended to it in salutation. Its horn was sharp and menacing, and it had a voracious appetite that may or may not have included delectable little babies.

Because I heard Meryl Streep in her impeccable Australian accent saying, "A hornworm ate my baby," every time I looked at it, I killed it.

(For the sphinx moth lovers out there, I did merely relocate two smaller ones I found on my tomato plants.)

And finally, here's a photo of the latest redneck gardener addition to the backyard. One of those cool mornings a few weeks ago, I took the boy out into the vegetable garden with me. It had rained the night before so I didn't want to put him on the wet ground. The sun was coming out so I cobbled together what I had to keep him protected. I hope to embarrass him at a later age with this photo. (In case you're worried, he's yawning, not crying, in this picture.)

Poppies Bloom Day

Beginning on March 23, my garden has exploded in blooms like it has never seen before. The biggest stars have been the poppies, both red and pink. I love all stages of the poppies: from bud to seed head.This pink one grew from seeds that Joan Hilbig, a Green Corn Project gardener, gave to me and to CTG producer Linda Lehmuvistra. Joan wanted her pink poppies to spread all over Austin. I didn't have very many blooms last year so I didn't have many seeds to pass along. This year I've had a lot more blooms and hope to fulfill Joan's goal.The red poppies came from several sources: Patty Leander, Boggy Creek Farm, and the Natural Gardener. I might have also snagged a few seed heads while walking in my neighborhood, but in case you live in my neighborhood I don't want to out myself as a seed head rustler. I know what can happen to rustlers.I love how this poppy grew up perfectly in the middle of this iron bird. (In case you're wondering, I bought the iron bird and the dragonfly below, from a vendor at Wimberly Market Days, which, for the uninformed like me, is not a farmers' market. I kept asking where the vegetables were, but alas there weren't any.)

I do have some other flowers blooming, like these bluebonnets surrounded by volunteer clover: but the standouts remain the poppies: I love looking out the kitchen window to see this stand. From the changing table in the nursery, I can see another field of them.

Even though my backyard has never looked more flower-ific, the blooms are still just a wonderful backdrop for the cutest bloom in my life: Who knew becoming a mother could turn me into such a cheeseball?

Strawberry Surprise

Over the years my garden has provided me with innumerable surprises--from the pounds of rusted nails and broken glass that initially constituted my soil to the vegetables that actually grew and fed me.

I still see each flower as a surprise.

I've also found some more unusual "gifts" in my garden. During the summer of 2007 when it rained and rained here and my chard grew to beanstalk height, I found a bird egg resting in the stems. It never opened.

Then there was the time I unearthed a coin commemorating Eisenhower's second inauguration in 1956. I was so excited that I immediately ran into the house and looked online to see how much I could sell it for. I had visions of redoing the entire backyard, even the entire house.

I found a similar coin, in mint condition, for sale on Ebay. For $3.00.

And then are the gifts that are more canine in nature. No, no, no, not that. This: the infamous tomato/fish head debacle:
Then there's the mystery items that shouldn't have been a mystery at all. Last fall when I was prepping my vegetable garden, I dug up a large animal skull. I wondered if a squirrel had been using my bed as a burial ground but thought little of it until the next day,When I found another skull and then another. I got a little freaked out and tweeted about it asking for advice on these gruesome surprises.

About 10 minutes later I realized the skulls were the remains of the fish head debacle and sheepishly had to admit that on Twitter. What I didn't mention then because it was too early (even though Jenny of Rock Rose had already figured it out) was that I was pregnant and therefore had somewhat of an excuse for my brain lapse.

In addition to digging things up, the dog also likes to bury things in the yard, like this toy (can you find it in the picture at the top of the post?), which has probably been buried at various times in every inch of the yard.Here she is last night, plotting her next burial:This morning's garden surprise, however, is guaranteed to be the most unusual one. Look what I found when I went to check on my strawberries:Based on the stork bite on the back of his neck, I know how he arrived. I can only guess that the stork placed him in the strawberry patch because I don't have a cabbage patch.

As he's already showing a proclivity toward weeding, I think we'll keep him.

And in family naming tradition (the dog's name is Pear), we'll call him Strawberry.





As if I need to tell you, April Fool's. Believe it or not, the baby didn't arrive via the strawberry patch. He is, however, a wonderful surprise. And yes, I've done this before: 2008 and 2009.

Feeling Blue

I've pretty much got a one-track mind these days, and it has little to do with my garden and almost everything to do with the little bundle of joy who should be arriving in the next week or so. But that doesn't mean that I have completely ignored my garden, it just means I see my garden through rose-, I mean baby-colored, glasses.

As I look at my garden these days, I see that it is trying to tell me something that I've hitherto not known: whether I'm having a boy or a girl.

Blooming and perfuming the air like crazy are the Texas mountain laurels seen below and at the top of the post.While not technically blue, these blooms are pretty close to what constitutes blue in the gardening world.

Ditto for the blue, I mean grape, hyacinths.Next we've got the larkspur, which is on the verge of blooming and will definitely be blue: So far, that's three blue, zero pink.

Now we move to the less clear signs of gender. This iris bud should turn out more lavender than blue. Does that mean it's abstaining in the boy-or-girl debate?
The vast majority of my spiderwort seem to be leaning male, but these hot pink ones are desperately trying to get noticed:
This cutie is the bluest of all my blue plants and would be a clear indicator
IF it weren't named Veronica. A boy named Sue might be okay these days but a boy named Veronica? I don't think it'll happen.

And there's the baby blue eyes from Rachel at In Bloom, which really should be screaming boy:except for that pesky word "eyes." If the name were simply baby blue, then I could go ahead and buy some non-gender-neutral clothing. But "eyes" ruins my hypothesis. It's not even helpful in predicting the color of my baby's eyes. Aren't all babies born with blue eyes?

Of course, there is a distinct possibility that blue/purple flowers are my favorite and that I've perhaps planted the ground so to speak. But is it really a coincidence that the two pink roses I planted--Duchesse de Brabant and Belinda's Nightmare Dream--died? (I wasn't pregnant when I bought or killed them, but hey, maybe they knew something then that I didn't.)

In conclusion, after this scientific analysis of my blooms, I have decided that my garden seems to be suggesting that there's a 50 percent chance that I will have a boy.

Now if it could only be slightly more helpful in helping me come up with a potential name for a boy baby. Before next weekend, please.