It's Tuesday (just play along)

Sorry for shirking my blogging responsibility yesterday (on a Yard-work Cocktail Tuesday no less). Believe it or not, blogging is reasonably difficult and if my brain isn't in the mood to come up with insightful and amusing material, I can't force the issue. 

It's just another tequila cran-rise over the okra

Bear with me and pretend it's Tuesday. That way we can still enjoy a drink at an entirely inappropriate hour of the morning. It's been hot this week (Monday was officially Austin's first day of triple digit heat this year). In the interest of staying hydrated in this completely seasonable weather, we'll go with something healthy - our old favorite, (and an idea born of necessity when we were out of everything but tequila and cranberry juice) the tequila cran-rise.

Baby bell peppers

I've been waiting patiently for the bell pepper plant to start producing. We finally have a couple of fruits on it. The smaller peppers, jalapeno and cayenne, have already produced quite a bit of fruit. It seems like bell peppers always take a little longer.

Momma's gonna knock you out

I know I've complained about roses before, but this rose has actually been pretty impressive. It's a brand-name rose (Knock-Out), which I had assumed exist solely to appeal to the sort of consumers that only buy things with a slick logo on the tag from big box stores where all of their neighbors also shop. But, like I said, the rose has been a really good buy. Since I planted it earlier this spring, it has grown to more than triple in size and blooms really well. 

Last year before I planted the rose in this little planter, I tried to cultivate some wild dewberries that I found growing in a vacant lot. For those who don't know, dewberries are a native Texas berry very similar to a blackberry, but a little larger. The plants themselves are similar to blackberry too, except, where blackberries tend to grow like a bush, dewberries grow as a tangled mass of thorny vines (a very desirable plant form for formal landscaping). Dewberry cobbler is possibly the best non-chocolate dessert ever conceived.

Anyway, they were doing fine last year until the drought really went into overdrive and killed everything. So imagine my surprise when this little guy popped up underneath the rose a couple of weeks ago.  Of course, in keeping with my gardening philosophy of not trying to rock Mother Nature's boat more than necessary, I'm going to let it keep going.

It's not surprising that a rose and dewberry would both be happy in the same place. They are fairly closely related species. 

Nature finding a way -
Thanks to me for the rest of eternity, regardless of what any human does, thorny, tough dewberry vines will be growing in this spot in the backyard