Other Updates to the Garden

I wanted to show some of my other projects through the backyard.

I planted some mammoth sunflowers this year and they are awesome! The breed of mammoth sunflowers are to get as much seeds out of a sunflower head as possible. The blooms start out nice and pretty, but once the seeds have been fertilized they increase in mass, and begin to weigh the sunflower head down which causes the plant to bend over from the weight.

View of my four mammoth sunflowers with the rest of my veggies. 

Ms Bumblebee fertilizing the sunflower

Another bumblebee. This sunflower was 12 feet tall

My best shot I believe

I have also embarked on building a cheap version of the texas tomato cage. Since space is at a premium in my garage I need tomato cages that can break down to store them easily. I looked up the texas tomato cages and thought they were perfect! Then I looked at the price. I'm not spending that kind of money on what amounts to basically well formed wire. So I sought out to find an alternative.

When I was at Lowe's on a weekend afternoon buying supplies for another project I walked by the PVC pipe section. A moment of inspiration hit me. Why couldn't I use PVC to make a tomato cage? PVC is dirt cheap! All I have to do is cut it, and then keep stacking it while the plants continue to grow.

The pictures show my results.

First you cut the feet/base of the tomato cage to a foot in length. Then you stack the layers of the cage thereafter.

Begin two sides in horizontal parallel to begin the cage. Then add an additional 6 inches in height. Then add another horizontal layer perpendicular to the first layer. Each horizontal layer is cut to 8 inches in length.

The basic design is every layer in one direction has a foot in length between, but every six inches allows a plant to rest it's limbs.

To anchor the cage I used bamboo sticks sold to anchor tomatoes. After building the cage up to 18 inches to 2 feet in height I'll hammer the bamboo sticks into the ground on the inside of the PVC pipe.

Other than that, my insistence to not use pesticides is makes things interesting in the backyard. I submit a picture of a spider hanging out.

Spider doing it's thing. 

Boomasaurus hanging out in his natural environment. Crushing my ornamental plants. 

Growing the Turffalo

Wow! What a difference a month makes. My Turffalo buffalo grass plugs took off! They went from pipsqueak plugs to full lush carpet grass. I don't know why more people don't use buffalo grass for their lawn. Under your bare feet it feels soft, lush, and fluffy. My wife may or may not have caught me laying in it with the dogs.

Buffalo grass plugs June 7th

Same patch July 20th 

Since my last update I kept watering the grass every other day applying half an inch of water. I did this for two more weeks until the plugs started to really fill in. I then took the watering down to every four days.

Boy the existing fescue/bluegrass I have in my yard did not like that. They instantly went into dormant mode. Within a week the edges of my yard looked like a dead zone. I'm guessing the fescue had shallow roots because of all the water it was getting. Now that it was cut off it freaked out. The buffalo grass handled it perfectly well though. No dormancy and it continued to spread. So well in fact that I've begun to slowly pull the fescue out of the yard. I'll take two or three bunches out each week, water the bare spot every day with the hose, and allow the buffalo grass to fill in. This will probably take another growing season to have a pure buffalo grass lawn, but I don't mind.

Second patch of buffalo grass plugs June 7th

As for care and maintenance I've been doing two things. I found a fertilizer by Hi Yield that is made for alkaline soils. It is 11% nitrogen, 13% sulfur, and 16% iron. Perfect for my soil type. I applied enough to equate to 1 lb of nitrogen for 1,000 square feet at the beginning of July. I'll reapply at the same rate monthly until the buffalo grass goes dormant. In between the Hi Yield fertilizing sessions I'll apply Ironite. It has the same count of sulfur and iron, but no nitrogen. You really can't over apply Ironite in a yard. Especially if you have alkaline soil. The sulfur will acidify the soil and release trapped minerals, and the iron helps with photosynthesis.

Second patch July 20th. Brown area in upper right is dormant fescue. 

The second thing I've done is allow the grass to grow taller. This will allow the buffalo grass roots to grow deeper. I went three weeks without mowing. The max height setting for my reel mower is only two inches. So I ended borrowing my neighbors gas mower which has a max height setting of 4".

I'll keep you updated throughout the growing season.