Things to Do at Myrtle's while the Grass is Dead

Okay, it's a bad joke, but as you'll notice now that we are updating "Myrtle Tells it Like it is" on a more regular basis, we are not averse to bad jokes. I suppose it's an obscure movie, and "at Myrtle's while the Grass is Dead" is a bit of a stretch from "in Denver When You are Dead", but on the other hand, it's a title, and we needed one, so there.

One down, one to go:

We finally finished putting in one of the raised beds for the olive trees. As you can see, all the planters are now empty of living, growing, producing fruits and veggies.

The olive bed is that long brown box in back.  It's big enough for 6 arbequina olive trees, each of which will, when mature, be about 12 feet tall, which puts them a little taller than the trellis structure you can see just at the right side of this picture.

We're putting another planter of the same size behind this one (you can see a dirt pile where it will start).  We had initially decided on 10 trees, so the planters would have been roughly five feet shorter each, but it just didn't sound right.  Never having done this before, we do not know how many olives you can expect from such a small planting, but 10 just didn't sound right.  We'd get olives for eating, but probably never enough to press even one container of oil.  12 is still not a large number, but it sounds more reasonable when attached to the word "grove", so we're going with it.

Plus, the space between the rows will make, and this is the correct phraseology for this claim, an awesome picnic spot, so that's where we are building one of our tables.

Christmas is fast approaching, and, of course, we have had our indoor tree up since November 1st, because nothing says "Dia de los Muertos" like a Christmas tree.  Anyway, our indoor tree is a fake.  (Shock! Horror!)  We generally object to fake anything, but if you can think of some way to keep a cut tree green for two months, please let us know.

Outdoors, meanwhile, we've got the "self-decorating" Christmas tree in abundance.  Most of the world calls it "holly".  Here in Texas, it's "yaupon holly" for the literal minded, or just "yaupon" for the sensibly concise.  We suppose you could call it ilex vomitoria if you wanted to be a smarty-pants-know-it-all.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Anyway, it looks awfully pretty in pictures like this one.... and it shows its vibrant red berries from late October through early March, making it very desirable, to some people... but not to us here at Myrtle's.  We've kept some of it (like that pictured here) because it makes the wild birds extremely happy.  However, before we cut down all that intrusive yaupon, those boxes you saw in the first picture could not have been seen.  Why?  Because before we cut it all down... the whole yard looked like this:

So, given how exceedingly difficult it was to clear out all the yaupon "weeds" which were choking out every square inch of what is now perfectly arable land, please forgive us for the fact that it's now all "dead", waiting for spring planting.

Sure, we could have onions and garlic growing right now, but we prefer to concentrate on longer term plans during the winter months -- olives and pomegranates will be "doing the work for us" when most veggies can't grow, so we want them planted as soon as can be.  Same thing goes for the herb garden in the front yard -- rosemary, thyme, icicle curry, oregano, these plants are working for us even when we are not working for them.  We'll throw the prickly pear in there, too, for good measure -- we got that from our friend Jack.  I wonder if anybody else thinks of him as "Cactus Jack"?

Happy farming!