Storm Farms Summer Produce

Almost two years ago I wrote about an organic CSA farm I toured in Balch Springs, TX. While touring I snapped a few photos and turned a couple of them into photographic art. One of the images I developed was a produce still life and I have contemplated adding more to form a series of produce images. I found an opportunity to do so last night.

A local operation, Storm Farm, has expanded its summer produce offerings and I stopped in to see what was in season last evening. Their sign has been advertising tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and beans. They did indeed have these as well as yellow squash. In addition to green beans, they also had wax beans. I had not seen those in quite some time. I picked up a box of the wax beans as well as some tomatoes, two yellow squash and a cucumber. Upon bringing my produce home, I set up a still life arrangement from them. I must admit that not all of the wax beans made it into the arrangement, they were too easy to snack on. I used one of the photos that I took to let people know Storms was open in a facebook post, in case anyone needed to grab some fresh produce for dinner and I used another photo to create the new produce photographic art piece seen above.

Storm Farms is better known as a U-pick strawberry farm from late March to late May or early June. They are trying to expand their seasonal offerings. Their summer produce is not U-pick. The experience is more like a small farmer's market or roadside stand (which it is). For fresh, locally grown produce stop by. As the harvest warrants, they plan to be open Tuesday evenings and Saturday and Sunday. See their facebook page for the most up to date time and day info. Hopefully we will see pumpkins in the fall and a Christmas tree market in December too (no, the trees won't be grown on the property).

First Monarch Siting of the 2018 Fall Migration

Yesterday (Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018) I saw my first monarch butterfly of the fall migration. My blue mistflower had recently started to bloom and that is what the monarch landed on. It stayed around drinking nectar for some time. It is amazing how a butterfly that covers so much territory can find and fuel up on a small backyard planting. Don't feel that you can't contribute to helping save these beautiful orange and black butterflies. A few monarch friendly plants tucked into your garden will make a difference.

In addition to mistflower, I have let some native late flowering boneset hang out in my garden after they showed up one year. Monarchs and many other pollinators fuel up on this plant. Since I added the mistflower, the monarch butterflies do

seem to have a preference for it over the boneset. This first fall migrator definitely did and got its fill on the mistflower before heading on its way. I have taken some nice pictures of monarchs feeding on late flowering boneset as well as lantana and small sunflowers so don't feel you are restricted to one plant to create a fueling station for these butterflies.

Both photos in this post were taken yesterday. The honeybee was enjoying the late flowering boneset, even if the monarch wasn't. (Click the images to see a larger view.)

Vote to Show Support for Lady Bird Wildflower Center

TxDMV approves and oversees the manufacturing of personalized and specialty license plates. Designs are submitted by specialty plate marketing vendors and/or non-profit organizations and then reviewed to make sure the plates meet safety legibility requirements. The designs are then submitted to a voting process to help determine which designs will be produced.

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has a proposed license plate in the current round of voting for new designs. You can help ensure it will be approved for production by voting for the wildflowers design (even if you don't live in TX). If approved for production, $22 from each plate purchased will go to the Wildflower Center to help them increase the use and conservation of native plants, and promote the restoration and creation of healthy landscapes across Texas.

Voting is open through this Friday, Nov 21st at 5pm! I think the design is lovely and hope that it gets approved. Your vote shows support for the Lady Bird Wildflower Center and gets it one vote closer to being able to take advantage of a new revenue stream. If you are a Texan and the design gets approved, then you can also support the Wildflower Center with your purchase of their beautiful specialty license plate.

Invasives and the Decline of the Texas Horned Toad

While habitat destruction ranks as the number one reason for loss of species and biodiversity, the invasion of exotic species (aka invasives) ranks number two. When aggressive invasives crowd out a native species it can often have a ripple effect on other native species.

One example of this that has happened while I have lived in Texas is the decline of the Texas horned lizard (aka horned toad). When I was in high school I was lucky enough to see some horned lizards in their native habitat. We also had a large harvester ant nest near the back of the pasture. At the time I didn't know about the link between that ant mound and the horned lizards. The ants didn't cause any trouble though so we left them alone.

Unfortunately, the invasive fire ants did cause trouble for the native harvester ants. They crowded them out and took over their territory. This spelled trouble for the horned lizard. Harvester ants are their main source of food. Isn't any ant as good to eat as another, you may ask? Unfortunately not, or at least not as easy to eat. The way fire ants swarm make them difficult for the horned lizard to make a meal of them without getting harmed. The horned lizard is now a protected species, due in large part, to the ripple effect of invasive fire ants crowding out the horned lizard's main food source, the harvester ant.

While it is unlikely that I will get a chance to spy a horned lizard in my area of Texas anymore, I did get excited that I might have actually seen one a few years ago. I caught a glimpse of a brown, spiky lizard. However as I was trying to remember exactly what a horned lizard looked like from many years before, the lizard turned around and it had a very long tail. Then I knew it wasn't a horned lizard. I did a bit of research and found out that the mystery lizard was a Texas spiny lizard. They are slimmer, not as spiky and have a longer tail than the horned lizard. While I miss seeing those iconic "horny toads", my property seems to have become a haven for the spiny lizard. That is a good thing for me since their diet consists of a wide range of insects.

But I digress, back to the plight of the TX horned lizard and other native plants and animals that suffer at the spread of invasives. You can help by educating yourself about invasives so you don't help them spread and by participating in citizen scientist projects like the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center's Sentinel Pest Network and Invaders of Texas Program that the center partners with.

Texas Natives for Your Garden – Sage n Gaura

The berm that I have planted mostly with Texas natives has been alive with lovely pinks, blues and purples from the blooms of native prairie onion, spiderworts, phlox, mealy blue sage and guara for a few weeks now. While the first three plants listed only bloom during the spring, the mealy blue sage and the gaura will bloom on and off through fall, although their heaviest blooms for me are during springtime.

Mealy blue sage is a perennial whose clumps will expand and new ones may form for you from seed. Slight variations in flowers and flower stem color occur in the seed propagated new plants. The sage plants in the photos of this post are offspring from seed of plants that I dug with permission from a ranch in Cresson, TX. Many wonderful additions for your garden can be found in uncultivated areas. Before collecting any plants from the wild, please make sure that you have the property owner’s permission and that you are not digging any endangered species. You will find cultivars of mealy blue sage available in many nurseries.

While gaura is native to Texas, the pink variety as well as the white one in the accompanying photos are store bought cultivars rather than native transplants. This plant is often referred to as “whirling butterflies” in the nursery trade.

Even though my area is experiencing drought conditions, these Texas natives are holding their own and blooming wonderfully without any supplemental watering. I do keep the garden mulched to help conserve water, however planting the correct plant for your area goes a long way on cutting down or eliminating your garden’s water needs. Additional native and adapted plants from my North Texas garden can be found in my Texas Stars photo album on my Facebook business page.

Gardening for Wildlife - Monarch Migration

There are several great plants including milkweed and butterfly weed that can attract Monarch butterflies to your garden. I would like to share two Texas natives, that you might not be as familiar with, that Monarchs flock to in my garden. They feed on the nectar of these plants to help fuel their 2500 mile fall migration to Mexico, where they hibernate for the winter. These two Texas natives, late flowering boneset and blue mistflower, supply much needed food for this epic journey.

Late flowering boneset naturally grows near streams, lakes or other low lying areas. I have found that it is adaptable to being included in my xeric garden. This plant does spread by underground roots and if it is in an area where it is very happy (damp or frequent watering), it will spread and form a large colony. It is also a vigorous reseeder, so it is best to clip and dispose of the seed heads so that you won’t be constantly pulling seedlings the next year. (Natural seed propagation is how it found its way to my garden in the first place.) So much for it’s vices, there is still a lot to recommend this plant for the right spot on your property. Late flowering boneset will attain a height of 3 to 6 feet. In my garden, it tends to get 4 to 5 feet. It usually blooms, from late September into early October. It is covered with an umbrella of white, fuzzy blooms for a few weeks and attracts a large variety of insects to feed on its flower’s nectar, including Monarch butterflies. This is a plant for the back of a large bed or for holding the soil along banks near low lying areas on your property. It is a perennial that dies to the ground during the winter.

Blue mistflower is also good for stabilizing sloping ground near low lying areas. It also spreads by underground roots but I have not found it to be an aggressive reseeder. It too, will happily fill an area that stays damp or is watered regularly. I have found it to be very useful in my xeric garden. I got my start as a division (with permission) from a local xeriscape. It also dies back in the winter but only gets a foot or so high in my garden, so it can be planted closer to the front of a bed. It usually blooms at a similar time as late flowering boneset but often for a little longer. It has similar flowers that are lavender in color.

If you have the space for either of both of these plants on your property, I would like to encourage you to plant them to help support the Monarchs on their long journey. You will be rewarded by getting to watch Monarch butterflies flitting around your garden during their fall migration, in addition to the other nectar sippers that will visit.

Fellow Etsian Sightings – EverythingDear

Whether by getting to know fellow Etsy team members, browsing through Etsy or hearting your favorites, one is bound to get to know at least some of the artisans’ unique styles. If you have done this, you may one day stumble across one of your recognized artisans in a brick and mortar establishment like I did recently.

My husband and I were invited to a large gathering of friends for lunch in Spring, Texas outside of Houston. Since we live in the DFW metroplex, this meant dedicating most of a Saturday to this sojourn. The organizer of our lunch didn’t realize that that particular Saturday was one of the busiest weekends for Old Town “downtown” Spring. It turns out it was their annual classic car show. The place was packed. We were lucky to find parking since the street that Google maps directed us to take was blocked and we didn’t know our way around.

We did enjoy looking at the classic cars on our way to meet our friends for lunch and noted that there were many interesting specialty shops in this area. After lunch some of us did a little shopping and looked at more of the cars. My husband and I turned out to be the only ones parked on the other side of this quaint shopping district, so after the others headed to their cars, we continued to browse some shops on the way to our car.

When we stepped into Mason's Art Gallery, the proprietor invited us to look around and let us know that her shop contained items from a wide variety of Texas artisans. As we wandered toward the back of the gallery, I noticed some prints that looked very familiar. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were the work of fellow Etsian, EverythingDear. This is a seller that is a member of one of the teams I belong to, TexasEtsyCrafters, and a seller that I have hearted. I told my husband that if we ever need a gift for a friend that is really into cats, we need to buy from this seller. Her work is every bit as good in person as it looks online.

EverythingDear’s photographic art is at its best, in my opinion, in her cat prints. They look like watercolors instead of photographs. There are also wonderful prints of flowers and butterflies. EverythingDear’s profile lists some other galleries where her work can be found. So if you are near one of these brick and mortar shops, you can get to see EverythingDear’s wonderful work in person instead of just admiring it online. (Photos in this article are from Everything Dear’s Etsy shop.)