Bolting Lettuce ...Hmm.

So we're first time gardeners and after being away for a week the garden looks SOOO different.

And apparently our lettuce didn't love us as much as we loved it...

I thought the lettuce "grew like crazy" when really apparently it "bolted."

Like ran away...see. It's easy to get confused. (Actually in the picture it sort of looks like we have two long rows of lettuce, but don't be fooled, those "long" things are actually TALL things.)

I found these websites when I was trying to figure out how we were supposed to harvest our Romaine Lettuce.  Turns out we waited too late... apparently they don't do well above 85 degrees.. we live in Texas.

Why Lettuce Bolts and What You Can do About It

Good Lettuce Gone Bad: Bolting and Flowering

And like the articles say, the lettuce is now very very bitter! I tried it and had to instantly spit it out of my mouth onto the counter...eww. Apparently growing romaine lettuce is not like buying lettuce in the store. See in the store you have a head of lettuce that was cut off all at once. But in your back yard, you just pluce off about 2/3 of the leaves when they look ready and then the leaves (AKA lettuce) keep growing back.  Then once it gets too hot, or the plant get's stressed out (lol), or if it just has bad lettuce genes then it will bolt --> tall growing --> flowers on the top --> all the leaves taste nasty nasty...

Better luck next time. And on to the tomatoes and corn :) :) :) ...and the spinach, and the onions, and the blueberries, apples, bell peppers, colored bell peppers, pineapple, and broccoli. That's all.

The Hesses have been...

...the Hesses have been...

Gardening...

Graduating... (and Kari, too!)

and

Coloradoing...

Details to Come... oh, and, Happy Summertime!

Arbor Day: The Boy and Girl Holly Trees

Happy Arbor Day!

Fun Fact #1: We have 2 holly trees in our front yard.

Fun Fact #2: I had no idea holly grew into trees, thought it was just a bush or a Christmas décor item. (Below is not the trees now... now the berries are green...)

Fun Fact #3: They have leaves all year and according to our good little friend Boston, they are the best climbing trees for little people.

See how the branches are like little steps all the way up? and it goes really far up...
 

Fun Fact #4: One of our trees is a boy. The other is a girl. The boy makes pollen, lots and lots of pollen. The girl makes holly berries. The girl is on the left, and her new berries are still green so it's hard to see them. I think the girl looks so much heavier than the boy, like she's stressed out, weighed down or something. I looked in older pictures of the house, and it appears she's been like that for a while. Hmm..

Fun Fact #5: It's fun calling the trees 'he' and 'she' now. It's like trees are our friends.

Maybe they are... Happy Arbor Day.

Earth Day Apples

Just in case you missed Earth Day.

We didn't.  Because, well… really, I have been slowly accepting the loss of our apple tree. It looks really scary and it has these hole in it.

See aren't they scary? Okay maybe you need to look closer...

Yep, creepy... We found out that they are more than likely from wood peckers or bees, but they still freak me out. Like I try to look at them because I'm so intrigued and then I run away yelling to Kyle that I think I'm going to have nightmares…

But I was still holding onto all hope that the tree would survive.  It made apples last summer, but they were all gone by the time we moved in. It probably has not been pruned in ten years, and probably wasn't watered for at least 2 summers.  But I appreciate that it tried to make apples last summer, and I wanted to give it another chance.

Then our 92-year-old neighbor told us the tree was dead. And somehow I believed him, even though Kyle had been telling me all along. I'm still trying to deny it, but if you look at the tree compared to the rest of the green yard, it's pretty obvious.

So then it was Earth Day, but mostly it was the day before my birthday and my husband bought me…

An APPLE TREE!

So we planted it and I'm sure all our neighbors though we were so "green." Really we just love apples, and plants that grow food.

Isn't it so lovely next to our holly trees?

So Happy Late Earth Day… or Happy Early Arbor Day (it's coming up on Friday so there's still time).

Happy Planting.