The Butterfly Garden

butterflies in the compost.  fall of 2012

Late last fall my beautiful man and I noticed hoards and swarms and legions of butterflies in our compost.  I found a "Bring Home the Butterflies" seed mix at a local garden center and sprinkled them during the winter.  I have to admit to checking the area anxiously and often despite the viciously cold winter.  Ok, it wasn't all that cold but we didn't really have a winter at all last year and I got spoiled.

little baby butterfly garden

The seed packet boasts 28 kinds of flowers but so far I've only seen a few.  Maybe they come up and bloom at different rates.  Or maybe I seeded them too close together and the bigger plants are choking out the smaller ones.  We'll see.  The earliest plants to come up were so cute and little.  At last our butterflies would have their own area to feed on.  But there are no butterflies yet.

a bee at work.  i got in close.  i didn't zoom!

We didn't even notice the last few weeks as the plants got bigger and bigger.  Not only did they start to grow and bloom beautifully but the garden started to expand as well.  I started noticing a bee or two feeding on the flowers but no butterflies.  Eventually I decided to get brave.  I'm afraid of bees but I really want a couple of hives.  I want the honey to help with my allergies and I want to help the bees.  Did you realize that every third bite of food consumed is thanks to bees?  And they're vanishing.  Poor bees.  They work so hard for us and they're dying off.  I want to help them.  So I've put a chair next to the butterfly (and bee) garden.  Every day I spend a few minutes sitting there watching them work.  There are more of them now.  I used to see one or two a day.  Today I saw 6 bees, yesterday there were 8.  I'm doing better at sitting still to watch them too. 

crimson clover?

New types of flowers are finally starting to show up and I'm looking up the flowers listed on the packet and trying to match them up.  I found a little red flower that might be crimson clover.  It's a pretty cute little flower.

my bee watching chair

Now I realize that you may be wondering what butterflies and bees and inedible flowers have to do with sustenance.  As I mentioned, bees are responsible for every third bite of food.  They pollinate and help our plants grow more food.  Butterflies work the same.  We've only just started to see them.  I think in the few hours we were outside yesterday we saw 3 butterflies and caterpillar.  The weather is finally starting to warm up so we should be seeing more soon.  The seeds sprinkled on the opposite side of the compost are starting to come up right next to the trumpet vine.  Once I replace the passion flower that didn't survive the winter we'll have almost one whole side of the yard attracting butterflies and bees.  All of this butterfly goodness surrounds the square foot gardens where our tomatoes, peppers, and all our other food will be helped by their happy feeding.

butterfly garden

butterfly garden

borage

butterfly garden

I've spent the last few hours looking at photos of the gardens and trying to decide what I should tell you about first.  Beginning at the beginning seemed like a good way to ... well ... begin.  But then I got tired of the word "begin."  I'm not sure why that happened.  We just started the Three Sisters Garden the other day.  Would that make a good start?  The Onion Garden is looking lush.  Maybe that would bring good luck?  And then I thought of it.  Lushy.  I shall tell you about Lushy.

Lushy the Garden Pelican

 It is my distinct pleasure to introduce you all to Lushy.  He is indeed a pelican.  I know what you're thinking.  "Pelicans don't like North Texas, it's too dry."  And you're right but it's ok, Lushy isn't real.  (Btw, you probably shouldn't tell him that.)

Let's start with the name.  On one of our trips home my biggest little sister and I decided that it would be useful to have flasks, particularly flasks that could follow us around.  Mind you, we were dead sober during this entire conversation.  We came to the obvious conclusion that we should get pet pelicans.  These pelicans would hold our alcohol in their bills.  Most of the time they would be well behaved but it would be unrealistic to expect that they wouldn't sneak a nip now and then.  Probably more nips than we know.  And so we named flask pelicans "Lushy."

Now I will share with you the story of my Lushy.  Shortly after moving to our little house with the great big yard in the middle of the right-next-to-the-city country my beautiful man and I visited a local garden center for some supplies.  That's when we saw Lushy.  He was just sitting there minding his own business like fake pelicans tend to do.  My beautiful man noticed the love in my eyes and asked the proprietor if Lushy was for sale.  Yay!  He was!  So Lushy came home to live with us.

Rufus and Barkley asleep after disc golf.

Since he came home Lushy has watched over the gardens.  Every now and then he gets restless and one of us has to move him from spot to spot until he finds one he likes.  Rufus and Barkley don't seem to mind him much.  They don't really bother him except for the rare occasion when one of boys mistakes him for a fire hydrant.  I'll be sure to get you some pictures of them in the yard.

Lushy's first perch

the first carrot harvest

 Lushy looked on as we planted our first gardens.  A 2'x4' square foot garden was first followed very closely by a 4'x4'.  The smaller garden got catnip, lettuce, broccoli, peas, and cantalope.  The second received broccoli, green onions, pie pumpkins, carrots, sun flowers, lettuce, and quinoa.  We knew we were racing the clock, Lushy wouldn't let us forget.  The cantalope and the pumpkin didn't have time before the first freeze, which also claimed the second broccoli.  Some sort of pests ate every planting of sunflowers.  We didn't plant enough peas.  The broccoli in the small bed tasted incredible.  I wish we'd been able to eat the other one.  Since we'd planted only baby lettuces we just added the leaves to our store bought lettuce.  The quinoa did amazing but I never finished the harvesting process.  Life got a little crazy about then.  We let the carrots over winter and ate them in the spring.  There were only enough for a small serving each but they were delicious!

the first raised beds

early compost

The rest of the fall and into the winter we started a compost bin.  My beautiful man built me one according to the design I had in mind.  He's a sweetheart.  I'm not allowed to say that so shhhh.  The compost bin got new levels as it grew the need for them.  Both yard waste and kitchen scraps went into the bin.  Coffee grounds, bell pepper tops, egg shells, grass clippings, forgotten lettuce from the fridge and so much more. We built another 4'x4' frame even though we weren't ready for it just because we were excited.  



 

 Since then we've started one hugelkultur in a corner of the yard.  The one is planted with potatoes, strawberries, dill and thyme.  It looks like we're going to have a lot of potatoes, like, too many potatoes!  Another hugel is in the works but we're not rushing on this one yet.  The extra garden frame is now a working tomato/pepper/eggplant garden.  They're being joined by 2 kinds of lettuce, some baby carrots, chives, and soon some basil.  The original big garden is the onion garden this year and is Lushy's current roost. Onions of all colors, carrots, lettuce, garlic and green onions are all coming along nicely.  I fear the broccoli is done for now but I'll give it and the weather a little longer.  The catnip got moved out of the small garden.  It was taking over in a big bad way.  We'll have a lot more peas this year and we've added some collard greens.  Soon we'll be planting what I've started calling "full sized carrots."  I suppose I've come to think of baby carrots as the norm.

close up of bee ... no zoom!

We seeded a butterfly garden last fall and it's big and beautiful.  It doesn't have many butterfly friends yet but the bees love it.  Bees, of course, are always welcome.  Lushy likes the bees too.  He says he enjoys their buzz.  Hopefully next year I'll get my own hives.  I'm afraid of bees so every day I spend a few minutes sitting with them.  It's getting better.  Today one buzzed my head and I didn't run away, screeching and flailing my arms.  I even took a picture of a bee all up close and personal and without zooming in!  It is possible that I'm a little too proud of that.  Under the bird feeder I sprinkled handfuls of seeds meant to attract wild birds.  A soft lush bed of assorted leaves is all we have so far but I'm eager to see what flowers show up.  There are a couple of tiny flower gardens including my beautiful man's bluebonnet garden.  The seeds in these are just starting to emerge.  Someone may or may not have seeded a few anthills with wild bird seed as well.  I really don't know how much I should say about that.  The Three Sisters Garden is less than a week old and no seeds have popped up their pretty heads just yet.  There has been some muttering from Lushy about moving over there to watch the beans grow up the corn and the cantalope and pumpkin spread out.  Sometime this summer we'll put in a memorial garden for a lost pet of 18 years.  I'll plant him some more catnip and find plants that will attract butterflies to him.  He'll get some edible plants and some just for looks or sentiment.  Eventually there will be a shade garden by the patio.  There's an ugly patch of clay that needs some help.  After the good dirt, newspaper and earthworms go in we'll find some things to make it beautiful.  A keyhole garden is on Lushy's wishlist and I'd love to add a few more raised beds but we'll have to see what the summer has to hold.

my beautiful man

As we travel down this road my beautiful man, Lushy, the boys and I welcome your comments and questions.  Peaceful discussion is encouraged.  Please enjoy this journey.  I hope you come to feel a part of it.

Lushy the Garden Pelican