Cat's Garden in Austin, TX

Still finding the tomato hornworms on my tomato plants.  Now I'm killing them by dropping the worms in soapy water.  It seems to kill them - I can watch them die.  With the days changing, and the weather cooling (for Texas that is) my plants are growing gang busters.  The tomato plants have lots of tomatoes ripening.  At least I should say the tomato plants in the square planter have tomatoes ripening.  The tomato plants in the RW planter (retaining wall planter) never got a single tomato.  They also didn't get any hornworms either.  But this weekend I hacked the RW tomatoes down.   If they are not going to do anything, I'm not going to keep them.  I've started getting ruthless with my plants.  If they aren't doing anything, I'm pulling them out or just dumping the soil in one big pile.  They earn their keep or they are out of here. The weather has been changing.  We get some occasional hot days but the days/nights are s...

We have bugs.  Bugs in the tomato plants.  Big green caterpillars.  And I do mean big.  These things are eating the leaves off my tomato plants.  And with my happy tomato plants, I have big happy bugs.  BUT I'm not happy about the bugs.  I've been picking them off and putting them in a container with cactus.  We'll see if they like cactus.  And hopefully they can't get out of the container.  Not happy about these critters. I looked them up and it seems I have tomato hornworms.  They grow into hawk moths.  They eat the leaves of tomato and pepper plants.  Actually they ate all the leaves off one pepper plants.  But the plant does seem to be trying to recover - its putting out new leaves.  I'm not sure how to get rid of these things other then to pluck them off and kill them.  I'm not sure exactly how to kill them.  So for now they are going into the cactus pot.  Its a pot of cactus I'm trying to k...

Wow.  We have been having some work done at the house, extending the back patio and paving the area with pavers, changing out some plants, and getting mulch put down.  Yes, I know, we've had workers doing most of the work.  But we've been woken early - the workers usually started at 7 or 8 AM and finished by mid afternoon in order to beat the heat late in the day.  Its made for early mornings.  But the planters do look good and the patio extension looks great.  So it has been well worth the expense. Things I am learning during this work.  Even plants they want full sun can benefit from some afternoon shade.  Many of the pots I had in the back near the patio got moved into what areas I could find that got some afternoon shade.  They are doing pretty good.  The couple of matching pots that were in full sun are growing, but not doing as well.  Moral of the story - afternoon shade helps in this heat.  As a learning lesson the tom...

Things I'm learning this summer.  I have two pots that do not have drainage holes - the strawberry pot and another pot.  Pot 2 has plastic taking up part of the bottom of the pot.  The strawberry pot is entirely filled with soil.  When we had our recent over and inch of rain, the strawberry pot was practically floating.  It actually had water sitting on the top of it.  I gently tilted the pot onto its side and let water drain out.  I hadn't realized the strawberry pot didn't have drainage holes.  I knew pot 2 didn't have hole, but I knew it had plastic in the bottom taking up some room. I'm starting to wonder if holding water in these pots is not quite the bad thing during the summer.  Yes, the strawberry plants are getting some sun burn, but considering the heat of the sun and the fact the pot is sitting in direct sun with no shade - I'm not surprised some of the edges are getting burned.  But I wonder - if I don't put drainage holes,...

How hot is in here your ask.  Well its now 11:15 pm and its 86 degrees with a heat index of 90.  Our high today was 98.  Welcome to Austin hot!

I know its been a while.  Got back from my trip last week and promptly got sick.  I'm getting better thank you. Well talk about Texas rain.  Last night, around 12:45 AM we got rain.  We got 1-1/4 inches of rain in a bit over an hour, maybe an hour and a half.  At least we've had rain, and we still need it.

This is Memorial Weekend, and its raining in Austin, Texas.  We had about 1.25 inches yesterday here at the house, and its raining again today.  I don't know how much rain we will get.  It is very much needed, no question there.  But it is still strange.  If it were any cooler I would think I was back in Washington state. As is, we are in the 70's, ranging from the low to high. But I'm sure all the plants will be happy for the rain.  This time of year I don't think they expect much rain.  But its here.  With the drought, plants and the reservoirs will be happy to get the much needed moisture.  And it hasn't all been those heavy downpours either.  Yesterday we got about the first inch of rain in one hour.  Then it was just kind of slow and drizzly.  It didn't rain overnight.  But this morning it started up again and its been slow and steady.  Just the kind of rain I would see in Washington.  But at least it shou...