A Tuesday to remember

As significant as Tuesdays normally are (thanks to The Nearly Constant Gardener's weekly tradition of Tuesday Morning Gardening Cocktails), this Tuesday promises to hold a particularly special place in the Annals of Blogging History (which exists only in my imagination). Thirty-one years ago today, (the year was 1981 and only a few of Orwell's worst predictions had come to pass) my parents presented a gift to the blogging world that would prove to alter the very course of human history, yours truly. That's right; it's my birthday.

My birthday Cuba Libre in the pepper garden

As much as I would love to present some fancy and creative gardening cocktail today, I'm lazy. I never made it to the liquor store yesterday, and our liquor cabinet is sadly depleted after last weekend's family-time. We're down to tequila and rum, and those are the sort of pantry staples that we just don't run out of, like coco powder or mustard. Therefore, today we're drinking the old standby, Cuba Libre (aka, rum and Coke with lime). I do have a Birthday Happy Hour planned for this evening at some pretentious bar where they do things like burn orange peels to add a smokey citrus flavor to drinks with names that only a hipster can appreciate (and that the rest of us find irritating). I'll try to remember to snap a photo of one of those fancy drinks.

Rather than show more pictures of large and horrifying bugs from the old Derrich place in New Braunfels, I'll actually show something from my own garden this morning. I complained before (hard to imagine, I know) about the giant crepe myrtles some person planted in my yard long ago and their susceptibility to powdery mildew. Today, however, I would like to celebrate the blooming season of crepe myrtles, which is actually pretty impressive.

A crepe myrtle in bloom,
hiding the power lines running to my house

Keep in mind that crepe myrtles can range in size from small shrubs to smallish-to-medium-sized trees, like this one that is about 25 feet tall, so when in full bloom they can create a huge swath of color. All of my crepe myrtles bloom in this magenta color, but they can have white, light pink, or lavender blooms. I've noticed that the magenta crepe myrtles are always the last to bloom. The lighter colored ones started blooming back in the beginning of May, and then the blooming season proceeds from lightest to darkest. Mine have just recently gone into flower production at full tilt boogie. 

I would also like to thank Heather White, cousin-in-law to The Nearly Constant Gardener, for identifying the unknown bug from yesterday that looks as if it preys on small dogs, cats, and children under the light of a full moon. Turns out, it is a male Dobsonfly, a rather vanilla name for such a hideous bug. I should also point out that Heather White is the daughter of competing blogger, The Master of Horticulture, which is a perfectly fine blog if you're looking for actual, useful information and techniques for gardening rather than the drunken ramblings of a unemployed, mild egomaniac. To each his own. 

If it's Tuesday, it's The Nearly Constant Gardener

It's that time of week again - Tuesday, not as bad as Monday but not quite hump-day Wednesday. Since Tuesdays get no love, we here at The Nearly Constant Gardener have instituted the wildly popular (to me) tradition of Tuesday Morning Gardening Cocktails.

This week's featured cocktail, the Cuba Libre (or rum and coke if you aren't into pretentious cocktail names), is in honor of our upcoming trip down to Port Aransas, the well-known shopping mecca for beach towel, board shorts, and flip-flop enthusiasts. It's also known for the sparkling, crystal clear water of the beach where you can literally see all the way down to your waist when standing in stomach-deep water. I'm exaggerating of course. On a good day the water is actually quite clear. I don't know why, but my beach drink of choice has always been rum and coke with a twist of lime. 

My Cuba Libre, waiting to be drank at 9AM

Since I try to maintain some semblance of a gardening blog (as opposed to a drinking blog), I feel obligated to also mention something regarding plants or the outdoors. You'll notice in the picture above, that my drink is resting comfortably on a stepping stone in some variegated periwinkle ground cover. It covers a small area between my front door and the driveway that gets too little sun for most things to grow thanks to the presence of a massive and ancient crepe myrtle that is prone to powdery mildew. 

The purple flower is from a stalk of lily-of-the-Nile flowers that broke off the plant a few days ago but still looks as good as new somehow. I haven't bothered to pick it up since the flowers still look ok so it's just laying across the walkway looking pretty but somewhat out of place.

In closing, I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who has made The Nearly Constant Gardener the world-wide phenomenon that it has become. Sometime yesterday, our total pageviews hit the arbitrary but significant number of 1000. So, on behalf of me, Travis, Sally and Penny, Patrick the Duck, Pearl, Juanita and Gloria, and all of my tireless correspondents spread across the known universe, thank you, blog readers, for your continued readership.

Rain

The time has come to put yet another workweek behind us. Rain has been the The Nearly Constant Gardening watchword this week. Appropriately, our Friday, End-of-the-Week Blogging-Wrap-up Musical Interlude, which meets the stringent conditions I previously set forth (1. I thought of the song, 2. I found a decent video of the song), not only mentions "rain," it also has "rain" in the title:

I'm pretty sure the question is rhetorical so please don't email me your answer.

There have been some periodic breaks in the weather where everybody's favorite blogger (me, obviously) surveyed the state of things outdoors, but since everything is such a soggy mess, very little gardening has been accomplished. Everybody is probably aware of the benefits of rain. Because I enjoy complaining, I will use this time to point out a problem caused by rain.

Actually, the problem isn't caused by rain, exactly. It's more of a case where wet weather exacerbates an existing problem. The problem is powdery mildew, and, yes, it looks as nasty as it sounds (I apologize now for the overwhelming grossness of these pictures).

Powdery mildew looks like it could be removed with feather duster, it can't be

It starts off looking like this branch of my crepe myrtle. The leaves shrivel up and look dusty. Every spring and summer a few of the branches on this crepe myrtle are afflicted, and this was about as bad as I've seen it get. Until now.

The late stages of powdery mildew infection

This year with such mild, wet winter followed by a warm, wet spring the powdery mildew has really taken off.  Entire branches like the one pictured are shriveling up and dying completely. Fortunately, the crepe myrtle is old and huge so there are plenty of branches where that one came from (and I, frankly, wouldn't be sad to see the entire plant go away). It was probably planted when the house was built 50 years ago. Unfortunately, that means it's susceptible to powdery mildew. Modern strains of crepe myrtle (and most other plant species that are potentially susceptible) are resistant to powdery mildew. Planting resistant plants is the only way to prevent or control it because, once a plant is infected, it will always have a few gross shriveled branches in the spring and summer.

It's probably bad juju to complain about the rain, especially considering last year's summer drought that killed every plant in central Texas. So, we can all look forward to next week when we'll have had the benefit of the rain without it actually raining. In the spirit of this hopeful outlook, here is one of my vegetable garden beds. We refer to it as "the far bed" because it is geographically the furthest from our backdoor (by a good 2 feet). 

The far bed with Patrick's head and butt in the background

This year it has peppers and an eggplant. Since I planted them a few weeks ago, they've just been sitting back, not growing much. I've mentioned before that they are happy about the rain. After all this rain, they're growing and flowering and even starting to fruit.