“Starsky and Husk”

ESPatch Nov 22, 2010 9 comments

Ridiculous.

My tomatillos appear to be exploding, imploding and generally disappearing inside their husks, Noooo!

What is going on here? This is the first time I have ever grown tomatillos and at this point I am dumbfounded.

They started out great…

and would get to this stage, but never turn green? I did read that in a ripe state their color can vary significantly with purple being one of the colors mentioned, but when cut open…

the flesh is mealy and just bland? I cannot image what a salsa would taste like with these used in it.

And now this happens! Shriveled tomatillos and barren husks!

Oh don’t even schtart Goldmember.

The Patch is turning shades of brown once again, cattails are about to rip open at the seams and this bog cypress is about to shed all of its foliage, something it likes to do very fast,

I wish I could say the same about my pecan trees, it seems they just keep shedding for months! My strategy this year is to wait until it is quite finished before the mammoth clean-up. “Don’t look at the mess..don’t look at the mess..do…”

The leaves on my post oak are also falling at a steady rate. The post oak’s scientific name is quercus, which is the genus for all of the oaks, quercus stellata. It gets the name stellata because if you look on the under-surface of the leaf with a magnifying glass you will find tiny hairs.

Not now Jeff!

On a post oak these tiny hairs are not uniform across the whole thing, rather they are in little bunches that grow in star-like clusters. Stellata being Latin for stars…pushes glasses high up on ridge of nose, snorts quietly.

The spherical object on the underside of this leaf is not a seed but a leaf gall. These leaf galls are formed by a variety of insects or small wasps that commonly infest oak trees. Most leaf galls on oak cause little or no harm to the health of a tree. Galls are abnormal plant growth or swellings comprised of plant tissue, they are usually found on foliage or twigs. These unusual deformities are caused by plant growth-regulating chemicals or stimuli produced by an insect or other arthropod pest species. The chemicals produced by these causal organisms interfere with normal plant cell growth…one loud involuntary finale snort.

I recently noticed some feather grass broomsticks propped up against the base of this oak tree…I can only assume the ESP witches are doing some fall cleaning, in preparation of decorating their rickety house for Christmas with strings of illuminated, inflated gulf-coast toads? I believe they got this nasty interior design idea from National Geographic, I have recently noticed that they are getting it delivered by raven.

James Snyder took this striking photo of a frog that ate a small light bulb. It was featured in National Geographic’s “Daily Dozen”

“This is a Cuban tree frog on a tree in my backyard in southern Florida. How and why he ate this light is a mystery. It should be noted that at the time I was taking this photo, I thought this frog was dead having cooked himself from the inside. I’m happy to say I was wrong. After a few shots he adjusted his position. So after I was finished shooting him, I pulled the light out of his mouth and he was fine. Actually, I might be crazy but I don’t think he was very happy when I took his light away”.

This unusually large chrysalis showed up in the Patch this week, I caught it hanging under my hoja santa plants, well you could hardly miss it!

I believe this is the rare

Argumenti selecthearingus

I will be studying this ones development very closely over the next 15 years or so.

Not all things are sepia though…

This mammoth giant elephant ear

Colocasia

is quite impressive with the light hitting it. This plant surprised my this year with a remarkable rebound. You may recall that after my “carnival” incident: https://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/01/carnival/ that attempted, but failed, to protect my Mexican lime tree last winter? It was at this pivotal point that I made the decision to not cover anything ever again, ever…oh no, not me…the large bulb of this colocasia took quite the beating under this new traumatic Patch policy.

“Beeeeeeeltch”

Now I know you could have gone your entire lives without seeing these pictures again (just think about that green leaf) but if you recall, It went from a moist elephants foot to a smudged over, horrendous smelling garden treat of rotting flesh…I knew I shouldn’t have pushed on it, but well, I just had to.

The rotten ear, now flat to the ground, formed a hard crust which did nothing for a few months, although that part of the garden had a rather “unsubtle” aroma during this period. When anyone visited the Patch during this dark time, you could tell when they were anywhere close to it from their falling expressions and ashon pallor.

After a few more months of apparent fermentation, I was surprised to see it come back to life, green shoots sprouted forth from the fizzing kimchi. I was impressed. It sent out some tiny side shoots that I thought were not going to amount to much, but I was quite wrong as you can see. So if your colocasia freezes and you have the stomach to put up with its unearthly rotting aroma for a while, don’t dig it up, I just bet part of it will prevail.

A recent visit to Copper Rock wholesale nursery…not sure what type of agave this is but I sure do like it!

Wintery illumination in the Patch.

A cardinal in the silvers.

Another tiny Cypress ‘blue ice’ gets planted along the perimeter of the Patch this week.

Final crop of peppers.

I caught these armored centurions huddled together on my porch.

Largus californicus

Finally:

I recently found this…

and more great rain water collection solutions from a local company that also are addressing space sensitive solutions to harvesting rain water. Existing rain-water collection barrels are really not that practical, filling up in seconds in our Texas sized downpours. But this on the other hand…

They also look good placed in tandem down these tight spaces.

http://www.watercache.com/

Stay Tuned for:

“Voodoo”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“Hannibal Nector”

ESPatch Nov 13, 2010 14 comments

From a sketchy starting point,

to a rendering…

…to 15 yards of granite, 2 tons of flag and 1.6 tons of boulders that all had to be pushed, carried and coaxed to the back yard on wheelbarrows or manually rolled (employing ancient Egyptian bolder moving techniques).

The Ancient Egyptians apparently adopted the use of iced turbans to excessive degrees when working out in the heat, to think I had the arrogance to think that this was actually my own invention!

Note to self: Must remember not to tie them too tight next summer…(hands frantically feel around skull for any abnormalities)

Plants were chosen,

and stock tanks were filled, oh yes there had to be a stock tank, okay two! Is that artemesia dotted on top of that mound? No it couldn’t be!

This back garden has gone through quite the overhaul in the last two weeks, it now visually flows with the front garden that was finished with the help from numerous iced turbans in the brutal heat of the Texas summer.

https://www.eastsidepatch.com/2010/08/the-final-push-esp-on-tour/

This design scheme has been very rewarding. The home owners signed up for the full ESP treatment – front and back re-design, lawn elimination and design installation, including implementing a new color scheme developed for their house and shed.

Here is the house, masked and almost painted. The home owners were delighted to finally get rid of their lawnmower…no more mowing required here, ever.

While I was working this garden I was required to move a rather large tree stump, underneath it I found a myriad of creatures from the dank underworld…I love moving large structures like this and always have my little point-and-click on macro ready to capture some of the “Brrrs” invariably lurking below. On pushing over the stump, I performed my now customary “Highland (roach) Fling”,

until they had all disgustingly dissipated. I then ventured down into the darkness with my camera to see what I could see…This tree stump did not disappoint:

First encounter came from this very colorful and very energetic millipede, and then this…

Ceuthophillus secretus

hunkered down cave cricket caught my attention. Cave crickets are also known as camel crickets and spider crickets, they belong to the Family Rhaphidophoridae. As their name implies, these crickets are commonly found in caves, although some species (like this one) dwell in cool, damp areas such as beneath rotten logs, damp leaves and stones.

Cave crickets are wingless, brown in color and may measure up to one inch in length. They have large hind legs and a set of long antennae, which serve as guides through their darkened environments. Many cave cricket species live without sufficient food sources and to avoid starvation, they have been known to devour their own extremities, yes folks that is what I said, even though they cannot regenerate limbs.

Obligatory Lector noises

Given their limited vision, cave crickets will often jump towards any perceived threat in an attempt to frighten it away. It appears I got lucky and did not have to break into another ridiculous Highland (cricket) Fling on this particular occasion. A couple more…

This brown chrysalis inscribed with futuristic hieroglyphs looked like an ancient sarcophagus.

The next one looks as if I could have constructed it, lots of “flare” – some type of moth?

Back in the Patch…

I promise this will be my last post on celosia this year, okay promise might be too strong a word. I have to post some images of these regal plants as they adorn their finest end-of-year purple robes.

My front garden and hell-strip is now transformed into a shimmering purple and crimson haze, it has taken on quite a fantasy aesthetic. Everybody who walks past reaches out to touch these seedpods.

The seed husks (after shelling) can also be a lot of fun.

The leaves of the plant turn bright red at this time of year, a stark contrast to the crispy bacon that was once my moon flowers…

“Looking good now ESP!”

This sparkler sedge works well reflecting the random swirling forms of this wizened cedar carcass. I have coveted this plant ever since it was brought to my attention by Pam at http://www.penick.net/digging/ who kindly gave me a small transplant. I then inherited a few more of these plants from the nice folks from the Gardener’s supply company http://www.gardeners.com/.

I recently came across a picture of this part of the Patch when we first moved in. I had forgotten just how wild it was.

If you are like me, right now you and your garden are under siege from…

…tiger moth caterpillars, the infamous woolybears. When these show up in the fall, folk lore denotes that they are thought to indicate the severity of the oncoming winter by the proportion of red-brown to black on the body. They devour anything and everything, but apparently love gopher and dusty miller plants…must be that latex flavored sap! I have never seen so many of these caterpillars.

Nice of them to leave me one top.

There are many different types of tiger moths and caterpillars, this one is a mature saltmarsh caterpillar, Estigmene acrea (Drury). The good news is these formidable munchers complete their life cycle in a matter of weeks, much longer and I would have no plants left.

And just what do these urchins mature into?

Looks like we will be seeing a lot more of these next year.

Finally…

These reflective crystals got lots of attention at this year’s Celtic Festival at Fiesta Gardens.

Faces were painted…she loves this experience, him? Perhaps not so! He held on, white knuckled, like he was in the dentist’s chair.

Then came the hair braiding, I thought she was going to fall asleep, it was like she was having a full day spa-treatment.

The final result was quite impressive but for him naturally it did not last:

He ended the day looking more like a deranged monocled mad scientist then a dalmatian, a look I personally preferred.

Stay Tuned for:

“Starsky and Husk”

All material © 2010 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

East Side Patch

“Starsky and Husk”

Argumenti selecthearingus

Colocasia

Largus californicus

“Voodoo”

“Hannibal Nector”

Ceuthophillus secretus

“Starsky and Husk”

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