BBQ, Bluebonnets, and Rockin’ Out in Llano by Patty G. Leander

Posted on March 28, 2016 by Jay White

Today I’m taking a break from vegetables to remember a BBQ legend, revel in Texas wildflowers and be amazed by rocks.

In memory of and gratitude for Texan and BBQ icon Jim Goode, founder of Houston’s Goode Company Restaurants, who passed away last month at the age of 71. Like so many Texans, I have always loved Goode Company BBQ, Brazos Bottom Pecan Pie and the Goode Company logo, above. For a bit of nostalgia that takes you back to the 1977 origins of that first restaurant on Kirby Lane, click over to the Goode Company website: http://www.goodecompany.com/our_start.asp.

Goode woode: Jim Goode’s use of mesquite for smoking brisket and grilling burgers earned him the title King of Mesquite

If you are reading this and you live in Texas let’s all pause for a moment and thank our collective lucky stars. We are a big, diverse, dynamic state with an amazing history, incredible natural resources, the best BBQ and the friendliest people around. Gridlocked traffic and contentious politics can weigh a little heavy at times, but spring is here, Texas is blooming and it’s a beautiful, invigorating sight to see.

Early blooms of Texas redbuds promise that spring is on its way

Bruce and I had the opportunity to take it all in recently during a drive from Austin to Midland. I had been invited to give a talk on edible landscaping at a monthly seminar hosted by the Permian Basin Master Gardeners, but they did not have to twist my arm to come; Midland is my hometown and it had been over two years since making the pilgrimage to my West Texas roots.

The highways bloom with Lady Bird’s legacy: Bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush (left), Texas poppy and Indian blanket (right)

We took our usual route on Hwy 71, noting the landmarks along the way: the small Post Office in Valley Spring (never a line), Coopers BBQ in Llano (always a line), the rows of grapevines in Pontotoc (the Chickasaw word for “Land of Hanging Grapes”) and the “Heart of Texas” monument in front of the McCulloch County Courthouse in Brady (the geographical center of Texas). US 87 from Brady takes us to Eden where the main intersection in town offers us a choice of either DQ on the north side or Venison World to the south and also marks the halfway point between the house I now live in and the house I grew up in. From Eden it’s on to San Angelo for a pit stop and an iced tea at McAlister’s, then the cautious drive through Carlsbad where we were nabbed several years ago for exceeding the speed limit (it’s easy to miss the two mile stretch where the speed limit drops from 70 to 60 MPH). After Carlsbad the miles pass quickly – 30 minutes to Sterling City, 30 minutes to Garden City and then target acquired – the Midland skyline appears on the horizon. The Tall City.

Though Midland has changed over the years, through times of boom and bust, my nostalgia grows as the miles pass, anticipating familiar faces and places, a drive through my old neighborhood and a ‘meat chalupa, add guacamole’, at Taco Villa (can’t seem to shake this habit from high school). But this time the most exciting part of the 300 mile trek was passing rivers full of WATER. Every river and creek we passed – the Pedernales, the Colorado, the San Saba, the Concho – were flowing at levels we haven’t seen in years. I know this is a stark contrast to the flood conditions that so many are dealing with in parts of East Texas but after several years of exceptional and extreme drought conditions throughout West Texas it was a sight and a blessing to behold.

Stacks of rocks got our attention as we crossed the Llano River

On the way to Midland something caught Bruce’s eye as we crossed the Roy Inks Bridge in Llano…stacks of rocks strewn along the banks of the river. We were on a fairly tight schedule to get to Midland and with 250 miles left to go we decided to check it out on the return trip and we are so glad we did. We learned that the stacked rocks were part of the 2016 Rock Stacking World Championship sponsored by the Llano Earth Art Festival. There were four categories of stacking – height, balance, arches and artistic/freestyle – all created without adhesive, wire or any other aids. Visitors were invited to wander among the stacked creations, and to build their own if so moved. I think my rock-admiring, geologist dad would have heartily approved.

Rocks hanging in the balance – the rock stacks remain in place until nature displaces them

Inspired by the rock stacks I decided my garden needed to have at least one.

Thank you Permian Basin Master Gardeners and Midland/Ector County Extension for the invitation to speak and for your edible garden enthusiasm and welcoming hospitality!

I share these posts on Our SimpleHomestead Blog Hop. Be sure to stop by. The “hop” has tons of great information from gardeners and homesteaders all over the world!

Spring Time is Weed Time!

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Jay White

If you need a reminder as to why gardening in Texas is so difficult, here it is. According to something I heard on the radio the other day, this is the earliest spring since something like 1884. Despite that, if you planted your “tomatoes” when you were “supposed to” in a normal year, they still got burned by a late season freeze during the earliest spring ever! Gotta love Texas!!!

I hope your tomato transplants made it through the late season cold snap. If they didn’t, I hope you have enough left to replant

If you took my advice and planted your tomatoes last week then I hope you got them covered before the cold weather came in. If not, I apologize. There was a 95% chance it would not freeze. Since it froze anyway many of you will probably need to replant if your tomatoes lost most of their leaves. This late season cold snap also hit ornamentals. If you had already put out tender flower transplants they likely got burned as well. Pull them up and replant if more than 50% of their foliage was burned.

Some weeds are too pretty to pull! Even though they are a bit invasive, I leave most of the buttercups that pop up in my beds

If last weekend was the perfect time for planting, then this weekend is the perfect weekend to get control of the weed problems that are “popping up”. I get a lot of weed control questions on the blog. For an organic gardener, the options are fairly limited. You can pull them, hoe them or spray with an acetic acid mixture. Only problem with acetic acid is it kills everything. So if you are trying to kill a few dandelions in the middle of your beautiful lawn, cover them with a shield. A great trick is cut the bottom out of a jug. Place the bottomless jug over the weed and spray your herbicide into the top of the container. This will limit the amount of grass, or other plants that are potentially affected by overspray.

Concentrated acetic acid is a great organic weed killer.

If you go to the trouble of pulling and chopping all of those weeds this weekend, be sure to mulch afterwards. The best way to control weeds is to prevent them and nothing does that better than a thick layer of mulch. I am lucky enough to have a truck so I get my mulch in bulk from my local landfill. I use wood chips in my ornamental beds and spoiled hay in my vegetable garden. Any dead, organic material will work. Another thing I often use in the vegetable garden is newspaper. If you wet newspaper and then overlap several layers over an area it will dry and form a very good barrier. Cover it with mulch to make your rows and beds look a little mote tidy.

Sweet Green is a high notrogen, organic fertilizer that works as well on your vegetables as it does on your lawn

I also get a lot of lawn questions this time of year. Here are my tips. Do not put out pre-ememrgent weed and feed products now. It is too late. The fertilizer is going to feed the weeds that have already germinated. Instead, mow your lawn on your lowest setting. In fact I would do this for the next two or three weeks in a row. This will kill most of the weeds that are growing now. After mowing put out a high nitrogen fertilizer like “Sweet Green”.

Another great thing about spring is the chickens start laying again on a regular basis!

Time to Plant the Spring Garden

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Jay White

This weekend is a great time to plant most beans from seed.

If you have not already planted your spring garden, this weekend is the perfect time to put out those transplants that you have been babying and also plant lots of other things from seed. I have not planted yet so this will be a busy weekend for me. I realize that many of you took advantage of the unusually warm “winter” weather we have been experiencing and planted a little early. Great! You took a chance and you will be rewarded with early harvests.

I did not plant early. This is partly because I am not much of a gambler and partly because life got in the way again. I have learned that life is a whole lot like the weather. While you can prepare for the storms you don’t know when they will come. Luckily this storm is going to pass with very little damage. However, it did sideline my dreams of a large, magazine worthy spring garden.

Take every chance you can to teach children about the miracle of gardening

I worked very hard this winter to get my dream garden ready. I finally finished the granite walk path that runs from my deck all the way through my main gardens. I also installed six water spigots that will eventually provide water to my drip irrigation system that will water twelve 35’ long rows. Despite these valiant efforts, my dream garden will have to wait until the fall. Oh well, such is life. Sometimes things happen and gardens just don’t get planted on time.

Even though this is a busy time in the garden, take time to smell the roses!

In the space I have available in my plain, old, six row, crowed garden, I will plant cucumbers and contender bush beans from seed and Tomato and squash transplants. If you are new to gardening know that there are many, many things that can be planted now (check out Patty Leander’s planting guide here). While I will be growing contender bush beans you can plant all types of bush and vine beans. You can also plant Southern Peas like Purple Hulls, Creamers and Crowders. If beans are not your thing you can plant sweet potatoes from slips or from potato pieces just like you do your Irish potatoes. In my opinion it is a little early for melon and gourds but I have some growing out of my compost pile so nature apparently says plant them now too. Got a taste for hot, buttered sweet corn straight form the garden? Plant it now. It is also a great time to plant pumpkins. I have 50/50 luck with pumpkins. Sometimes they do well and sometimes bugs and fungus get to them before they get half grown. My best pumpkins ever grew out of the compost pile on accident. Because of this, I am truly going to throw some pumpkin seed in the compost pile and see what happens.

Spring planting is not just about vegetables. Plant some petunias or phlox now to brighten up your beds

Even though I did not get the garden of my dreams this spring, I am thankful for the garden I have. I have come to realize that it is not what, or how much, I grow that really matters. What really matters is being outside tilling the soil, pulling weeds, watering transplants, checking the poppies and larkspur to try and figure out when they are going to bloom, enjoying the bluebonnets or watching the first martins of the year return to their house. Maybe this is why my garden expansion didn’t happen. I just didn’t get to it. When I am outside I am truly inspired, and often distracted, by the glory of the world that surrounds me. And that’s ok. While life happens, like nature, it is mostly a beautiful thing. When I am in my garden I am surrounded by, and reminded of, the blessings of my own life and the majesty of my creator’s greatest creation.

Even though they are fading now, redbuds are one of the reasons I love being outside this time of year.

So tomorrow, when you are out there weeding, tilling and planting be sure to take time to enjoy this most beautiful time of the year. Before you pull that dandelion, notice what a delicate, beautiful and perfectly designed flower it is. Enjoy the song of the mockingbird that is trying to lure a girlfriend into his nest and revel in the sight and smell of the beautiful roses that are blooming early this year. For a long time now, I have realized that the act of gardening is much more than the art of growing food. While all of your efforts will fill your stomach, it is still times between all of the activity that will feed your soul.

Happy Spring y’ all and happy gardening!

I share these posts on Our SimpleHomestead Blog Hop. Be sure to stop by. The “hop” has tons of great information from gardeners and homesteaders all over the world!

Fixer Upper

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Jay White

Tomorrow night at 8:00 pm CST, the television show Fixer Upper will air it’s season finale. Be sure and watch because the house that they will reveal is the absolute most fabulous house they have ever done. You may be wondering why I know this information. Well, I know about this incredible little house because it belongs to my daughter and her husband! So thrilled that these outstanding young adults had the opportunity to be a part of the wonderful things Chip and Joanna Gaines are doing for Waco! Sorry I can’t show any more pictures until after the show airs. However, here is a shot to perk your interest from JoJo’s Intagram account.

NOTE: Now that the show has aired we can show the pictures. Click here to see the entire gallery on Fixer Upper’s HGTV page.

My daughter’s house is the finale for season 3 of Fixer Upper!!!