Understory Garden

07/20/2024

Today, 07/20/24. Homegrown and Handmade from our garden in Leander, Texas.

07/13/2024

Lots of peppers coming in! Our favorites right now are the Papa Dreadie Scotch Bonnets, Shish*tos, and Aji Colorados. It looks like we’ll have no shortage of fermented hot sauce this fall 🔥🔥🔥

07/05/2024

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! We’re crossing our fingers for the rain 🤞🤞

06/29/2024

This year we were blessed with the opportunity to take over managing our neighborhood’s community garden. It was mostly a blank canvas, so we had to think on our toes for how to get things planted quickly and in a cost-efficient way. One thing we’ve realized is buying seed packs for $2-$4 is expensive for a large space. We’re not on a commercial scale either, so huge bags of seed also don’t make sense.

We planted a big area with black-eyed peas from HEB for $1.98 a bag. I think it’s safe to say this idea worked! These were sown May 14, and we’re seeing our first flowers now.

On a visit to our local Asian grocery store we started noticing they had seeds all over the place! We were excited to find this calabaza which seems is a moschata squash species. Moschatas are widely regarded to be the best for pest pressure in Texas. We planted the seeds and they popped right up! Plus we got to eat the calabaza and it was delicious! The Korean melon was also super tasty, and the seeds germinated quickly.

I know some of these plants probably weren’t isolated like seed companies do. So it’s possible we’ll get some surprises, which we don’t mind at all 🙂

06/22/2024

The past few months have been full of joy and abundance! We have met so many wonderful people through our neighborhood community garden. We are working on lots of exciting projects for fall there, including markets with handmade goods, installing a food forest, and adding more beds since we’re almost full for the existing beds!
The peppers are rolling in fast, and the first few batches of hot sauce for the year are now fermenting. I found this tiny green anole eyeballing an apocalypse scorpion this morning. It was bigger than him!

06/10/2024

Have a wonderful week everyone! Our zinnias have really been brightening our mornings. Hopefully they do the same for you 😊

06/06/2024

It’s about to get interesting over here with all these gourds! We started with only the birdhouse gourds then things escalated quickly to 8 varieties and considering growing them on the roof to save space 😅
Mark and I are both fascinated with some of the gourd art we’ve seen. I’ve always been an artist so I couldn’t resist trying some myself. I found these illustrations online. I had no idea there were so many fun shapes to craft with!
Most of these gourds are nighttime bloomers, so they rely on pollinators like moths. The night crew of insects is important, but often overlooked for daytime bees and butterflies.
To choose flowers for nocturnal pollinators look for pale colors and strong fragrances. We gathered lots of seeds recently for American Basketflower and Lemon Beebalm, two candidates that fit the bill nicely, with the bonus of being both native and medicinal!

06/03/2024

Did you know catnip isn’t just for cats? People can consume it for insomnia, stress relief, upset stomachs, and cramps. We use it in our herbal tea blends. Another handy way to use catnip is rubbing the leaves on your skin as a bug repellent. You may attract cats though!
We finally figured out how to get a good harvest of this useful herb. We’ve been growing it in a huge hanging basket where roaming outdoor cats don’t destroy it. Our two cats are indoors only and they definitely approve of this method.
Along with lots of herbs, we’ve also been harvesting garlic. The variety pictured is one we found growing on a very old homestead ruin buried in the woods. We’ve been calling it Mystery Garlic because it was so odd finding it out in the middle of nowhere, untended and thriving for who knows how long. There was a lot there, so we collected a few heads to plant in our own garden. This was our first time growing garlic so we are happy with our harvest. Some are nearly 4 inches across!

05/27/2024

We grow medicinal herbs, vegetables, and many Texas native plants in our backyard garden. Including natives is something we feel is vital to the permaculture style of gardening, which encourages working with nature, not against it.
Years ago when we were first starting our gardening journey the “messiness” of all of this would have bothered us. But now we love walking through our little forest. Some plants shown are Blackfoot daisy, Turk’s cap, lizards tail, coralberry, chiltepin, columbine, shrubby boneset, and artemesia.

05/15/2024

The community garden is thriving. Not only the plants, but the community as well! We are working together to learn and improve the whole space!
Check out the huge trellis we made for birdhouse gourds. Our plan is to grow the gourds and hang them all around the garden as nesting places. Development and habitat loss is happening all around us, so we are hoping to help in whatever ways we can. We also got the first in-ground planting area started. This space will eventually be part of a food forest!
Our backyard garden is also happy. Texas native heartleaf skullcap is in full bloom. Japanese indigo’s cheery little hot pink flowers are popping against white flowering cilantro. And we are picking pounds and pounds of blackberries every day!

05/11/2024

Hill Country Water Garden's trees are being stolen. If anyone sees a Mexican Plum mysteriously appear somewhere please investigate. The water garden is a beautiful and unique nursery that we frequent often. They are a wealth of information and we are grateful to have them here. So it's sad and frustrating to see this happen to them!

Come on, man! This is the second time this year our Mexican Plum tree has been stolen out of our display garden. We wanted to plant a native tree that would provide fruit for visitors, passersby, and wildlife. We also need a seed source to grow more trees. We’ve installed a few trail cams that will send us video notifications. Fair warning. 👎🏻👎🏻

05/09/2024

Mini front porch market for today, 5/9! Herbal soaps, skin care oils, and fresh picked blackberries from our beyond organic garden. Come pick Mom up something sweet for Mother’s Day ❤️

Prices from $3-$7. Venmo and Cash App codes are on table for scan to pay. I moved the blackberries to the cooler on the bench since it’s so warm and muggy. PM if you’ve never visited us and need our address.

05/08/2024

Our homemade herbal soap is ready! We made these bars with healing herbs grown in our own garden, foraged wild greens, and real, plant-derived essential oils for scent - no chemical fragrances. We also have three unscented options.
All of this soap is made using the hot process method, which better preserves the beneficial properties of the herbs. We cut each bar by hand, then chamfer the edges for softness. Hot process soap appears more “rustic” than mass produced drugstore bars. We love the way it looks!
We experimented extensively before settling on our unique soap recipe. These bars are a balance of cleansing and moisturizing, with good lather. They are perfect to use all over - face, hands, or body.
Please reach out if you’d like more info, or if you’d like to pick some up. Soap makes great Mother’s Day gifts!

05/06/2024

We spent a wonderful Cinco de Mayo touring Deep Eddy Community Garden on the river’s edge in Austin. The Deep Eddy Garden was built in 1968, and is beyond beautiful in every way. We met some very cool people there and left with tons of inspiration for our own neighborhood’s community garden!
While we were in the area we had to make a pit stop at Churro Co. Austin for some delicious treats. Definitely check them out, the food was amazing and service was great too. We also found a random creepy werewolf.

04/26/2024

Things bringing us joy right now - baby titmice, big harvests, healthy plants, and dewberry waffles. This is such a beautiful time of year in Texas!

04/18/2024

We spent the day in our kayaks exploring one of our favorite river ecosystems! We found some awesome patches of native edibles including oyster mushrooms, dewberries, mulberries, and wapato. This is the first time I’d ever seen wapato. This plant has a really interesting history of use by Native Americans. They consumed it in many of the same ways as Europeans did potatoes. Also, this has nothing to do with plants but I caught some decent fish. Mark put in a good effort and almost got one to the boat 😂

04/16/2024

We have been wonderfully busy this spring between our backyard garden and our community garden. All of our garlic is growing well, particularly the Mystery Garlic we discovered on an old homestead ruin in the woods. We’ve harvested a few scapes from it, they ended up topping some venison chili. The blackberries are loaded, plus they’re sending out runners far and wide that we’ve been transplanting to areas along our fence. Fritillary butterfly caterpillars have found our native passion vine. I think these hungry guys are the reason we can’t ever get passion vine to establish from seed! Our moon garden is also happy. Cilantro worked perfectly for filling in some holes with its masses of white flowers.

04/04/2024

Have you heard of Moldavian dragonhead balm? This is one of our favorite herbs for both our homegrown herbal teas, and feeding the pollinators. The vibrant purple flowers are delightful, they resemble tiny roaring dragons.
The flavor is intensely citrus - the best way I can describe it is lemon cream. Dehydrated it seems to hold its flavor more than lemon balm. The blooms also hold their color when dried. It has many health benefits including stress relief, clearing congestion, and improving digestion.
It’s an annual, but a cold tolerant one. The plant that’s blooming in the picture actually overwintered under just a sheet, its friend nearby was planted in February. I’d recommend direct sowing dragon balm in very early spring, or you can start it indoors around the same time as peppers and tomatoes- it grows quickly and transplants easily.

04/01/2024

We had the most amazing experience this weekend. We organized a volunteer clean up day for our community garden with a big group of neighborhood kids and National Junior Honor Society students. We were expecting around 10 or 12 kids, but 25 showed up! Almost all of the raised beds are now weeded. We are so grateful to have been part of this. It was an amazing reminder of what people can accomplish working together.
Our happy little pepper plants have been planted, along with some dragon balm and holy basil as just a few of many companions we’ll be adding.
Part of spending so much time in this new environment is discovering lots of bugs and other critters we’re not used to seeing in our backyard garden. We’ve found skinks, ground beetles, furry caterpillars in all shapes and sizes, blind snakes, and several kinds of wasps including yellowjackets. The presence of the wasps is welcomed - they are our favorite natural pest control! We also have a pair of vigilant red-tailed hawks as company as we work. We have heard there’s pesky rabbits in the garden, but have yet to see one, and we feel like the hawks are the reason.
Our home garden is happy as well. Nasturtiums are going crazy, the white flowers in the moon garden are putting on a show, and the blackberry hedge is absolutely loaded in flowers and bees.

03/25/2024

We are helping revamp our neighborhood’s community garden! It’s a huge, amazing space with a ton of potential. Mark and I have been there nearly every afternoon and evening, cleaning up to make the area more inviting for others, completely digging out bermuda grass down to the original soil line, resetting cinder blocks, and linking the small beds up into a size that makes more sense. We’ve been affectionately calling the two new 18’ beds we’ll be growing in the Megabeds. I shared a before and after pic. It was a lot of work but it feels so worth it!
Next up is planting! A friend kindly contributed some red okra seeds, originally from a Cherokee family farm in North Carolina. We’re planning a 4 foot block just for it! We’ll also be using all this new space to try roselle for the first time. I’m blown away but the vigor of these seeds from Southern Exposure. I planted these just two days ago!
Our backyard Understory Garden is predominately part sun and full shade under oaks. The community garden is in full sun all day, so this is exciting new territory for us!

03/21/2024

Today we had the pleasure of hanging out with Mr. Ron Tilton at Hill Country Hot Peppers farm! We received an amazing tour and gained a lot of knowledge of the whole seed to sauce process with his scientific approach to success. Ron is honestly one of the most genuine and coolest guys around and we’re so happy to have made his acquaintance. We grow almost everything from seed but couldn’t pass up some of the unique varieties he’s been carefully developing over the years. We also scored some pepper jellies and sauce we are super excited to try!
While we were south we also had to visit one of our favorite places in the world, The Natural Gardener. It’s always especially beautiful this time of year! Their completely unbothered box cat was the cherry on top of a lovely day.

03/17/2024

Spring pop-up with our friends The 75 Oaks this Wednesday! We’ll have our fermented hot sauce, homegrown herbal teas and skincare oils, seeds gathered from our own garden, and plant starts!
If you’ve ever been curious about growing your own herbal medicine then now is the time to start! Holy basil, calendula, yarrow, and chamomile all have amazing health benefits, and also are loved by pollinators. These plants are all easy to care for, even for beginners. They’re some of our favorite win-win varieties for both the gardener and our native beneficial insects. We grow all of these plants in our own garden so are happy to answer any questions for those that need guidance.
Yarrow- tough as nails, spreads by runners to make an excellent living mulch. Pollinators love the pretty pastel flowers. Many medicinal uses including wound healing and stomach troubles. It will grow in sun or dappled shade, it’s wonderful in its versatility.
Holy Basil- pollinator favorite, thrives in the heat, delicious bubblegum-esque scent and flavor. Makes amazing tea with many health benefits. This very useful plant is also our top recommendation for companion planting in the vegetable garden.
German Chamomile- this is a must-have in any medicinal herb garden. It smells and tastes like honey. We add it to our teas in the evening to wind down, and find it extremely effective. Can also be used topically to help with irritated skin.
Calendula- powerful herb for wound healing, eczema, sunburns, and bug bites. Can also be added into teas. The petals make a lovely edible garnish. This is a cheery mix of yellow, orange, and peach. Butterflies enjoy the broad “landing pad” open shape of the flowers.
If you don’t know about 75 Oaks Farm yet, please do yourself the favor of checking them out. They are a farm producing their own goods like eggs and honey, and also source high-quality products from other local makers. Much of what they offer is beyond organic, meaning the absolute best of the best in terms of health and environmental impact. They also give back so much to the community through education.

03/15/2024

Happy Friday everyone! Just sharing some pretty carrots I harvested after the rain came through this morning. Check out this girthy oxheart variety. These were our favorite we grew this winter, they’re wide instead of long and skinny which works great for areas without deep soil. Have a great weekend!

03/13/2024

“Swirl the flowers in the fat then cut it with a guitar string”… soap with a Beck vibe.
This is hot process soap we made with wholesome oils, yogurt, turmeric, a bit of pure orange essential oil, and our own homegrown calendula. We DIY’d a soap cutting jig with a guitar string, a $6 coping saw from Harbor Freight, and some scrap wood we already had laying around. This will be an exercise in patience waiting for it to cure, because it smells amazing!

03/08/2024

We made soap from dandelions we foraged in our yard! We know dandelions have a lot of health benefits for not only food, but also topical use, so thought this would be a great way to use them.
We actually had enough of them growing to totally fill our dehydrator. After drying we ground them to a fine powder. We mixed them in once everything had cooled off a bit, along with pure rosemary essential oil. We loaded in the dandelion layer, dusted with activated charcoal, then did a plain layer on top. Now we wait 6 weeks for the soap to cure. It’s rustic and not perfect like a lot of hot process, but considering this was only our second time making soap ever we are happy! We’ll be making more for sure.
We have been working to reduce synthetic flavors, fragrances, and other weird additives from our lives. We were kind of struggling to find affordable soap with only wholesome ingredients. Like so many other things if you want it done right try doing it yourself I guess 😅

03/05/2024

Babies! Plant babies and lizards too! Here we see Mark proudly showing off his flat of Quedlinburger Niederliegende Lemon Balm he sowed. I always mess with him and give him the tiniest seeds to sow with his huge man hands. He did great with these! This variety is supposed to be extremely high in essential oils. Valerian is naturally a slow grower but trucking right along. Both those we have in pots and direct sown are all doing well. St. John’s wort we transplanted in fall has spread happily throughout our leaves and wood chips. We have so many cool plants right now. Some for mood, some for dye, even some for soap!
Baby lizards are also everywhere, anoles and spiney guys. This one ran right up my foot. I guess he thought I was part of our potting table. I must be spending a lot of time in that spot 😅

03/01/2024

We have been considering planting more pollinator plants in our front yard. We figured we could try to turn this into a project with our neighbors interested in doing something similar with their own yards. I made this infographic to help out anyone that needs it. These plants are all relatively low to medium height, or respond well to occasional trimming to not block views for vehicles. The hellstrip is the area between the curb and sidewalk. This awkward, often unused little chunk of our yards has a lot of potential to help the pollinators!
I’m posting this here in case you want to share in your area too. I’m not sure where our project is going to go yet but I’m excited to find out!

02/24/2024

Our peppers and tomatoes had their first taste of real sunshine yesterday. It never ceases to amaze me how beautiful and different pepper leaves can be; the three in the picture are Black Paper Lantern, Scotch Bonnet, and Fresno. Check out the purple and white variegation on one of our favorites last year. We received seeds for that plant as a gift, labeled simply as Tricolor Thai.

02/23/2024

Quick fridge pickles! I figured this may be helpful to share for people cleaning out the cold weather crops for spring. Quick pickles are easy and fun, you don’t have to mess around with canning which honestly is our least favorite preservation method. These jars are mixed radishes and carrots, both of which we actually like better than pickled cucumbers. We use the recipe from Once Upon A Chef, but have found that since these go in the fridge and get eaten quickly anyway there’s not a need for perfection with measuring.

02/20/2024

Have you eaten your backyard weeds lately? Go have a look. There's a lot of things that pop up this time of year! We had fun foraging for these in our garden today.
Dandelion: rich in vitamins, has a large number of uses, perhaps most notably aiding in digestion.
Henbit: Excellent fodder for chickens (hence the name), early nectar source for pollinators, spinach like flavor that's easy to incorporate into salads, anti-inflammatory use and source of vitamins.
Chickweed: may help with inflammation and digestion, mild flavored edible green rich in vitamins.
Plantain: used topically to treat irritated skin, mild flavored edible green rich in vitamins.
Wild onions & garlic: lovely as a seasoning, excellent companion plant for gardening, natural bug repellent when rubbed on skin.
Wild violet: used topically to treat irritated skin, taken internally can help with digestion and clearing the lungs.
Prickly Lettuce: helps with cramping and pain relief, mild sedative.