Garden Club of Austin Fall 2009 Plant Show

I just got back from the end of the plant show. The Garden Club of Austin hosted its biannual plant show at Zilker Botanical Gardens this weekend. Friday morning I was buzzing around the yard and garage looking for plants to submit and spent a couple hours selecting them and cleaning them up for the show. I'd hoped that some of my plants would look better than they did, but who doesn't hope for that regardless of there being a show? Psh.

I brought them in Friday, and there was quite a buzz around my planter full of thanksgiving cactus in its bud stage. I was hoping it had the potential to win best of show, but there was some serious competition. Best of Show went to an amazing staghorn fern that was absolutely COVERED! Hard to compete with that.

Best of Show/Section Table

After the show, people were still impressed with my thanksgiving cactus, and I must admit I am very proud of it considering that I made up the potting medium myself and only started growing it this year. All was not lost on it. I still got a Green Thumb for it which is like an A+. Each plant is graded against itself and then within its section and the overall show. The Blue Ribbon (1st Place) is the 90th percentile and so on.

Thanksgiving Cactus

I actually took home a few Green Thumbs for a number of submissions.

Staghorn Fern (Green Thumb)

San Pedro Cactus (Green Thumb)

Roadkill Cactus (Green Thumb)

Buddha Belly Plant (Green Thumb)

However, not everything faired so well. I had one plant get the blue ribbon and a jar of pickled green tomatoes get the blue ribbon. I can understand why they didn't get a green thumb, so I'm not particularly upset. To be honest, I'm glad I didn't get any second or third places.

Alocasia 'Shock Treatment'

Canned Green Tomatoes (not enough liquid)

And then there was one plant that got no feedback, but it was a club plant we were all given to grow. Mine looked really sad, and it was a bit neglected. The winner had 5 large bell peppers and lots of beautiful growth.

Bell Pepper 'Camelot'

Apparently no one else entered the canning section of the show, so I won by default. Thankfully, I did get a Green Thumb for it, and I was particularly careful to pack those cucumber spears. Huzzah.

Canned Dill Cucumber Pickle Spears

So there it is. It was fun. It was great to get some feedback. It was even better to pull such good reviews/awards on my first plant show, and I guess cacti and succulents are what I'm good at. Now I'm motivated to nail the spring show for 2010. I've already got some ideas brewing.

2009 DG Photo Contest

Entries for the 2009 Dave's Garden Photo Contest can now be submitted here.

Here are the results for the 2008 contest.

I'm going to submit some, but I'd like to take some more and have a good selection to pull from.

What happens if you discover a new plant?

I have no idea what people do when they discover a new plant. Are there registers? What's the process for determining if it's a new species or hybrid or whatever?

Puppy and Kitten Playin'

These are a few years old now, and now they are all grown up. But back when they were both about 3 months old, they discovered a box on the floor...

Good Stuff in Austin for Labor Day

I'm actually impressed that for once there's something very awesome going on this Labor Day weekend in Austin. Well, events that I'm actually aware of before hand...

There's the Austin Cactus and Succulent Society Fall Show and Sale. We bought the "Put up yer dukes!" cactus as their spring sale this year. We also won quite a few cacti and found some cool caudicoforms. Good stuff. I really need to join the society.

There's also the City-Wide Garage Sale. I've found some really cool linens there, an awesome formica table and chairs, some iron work for the garden, etc. I'm going there with the intention of finding decoration and odds and ends for the office that we're revamping.

Between those two shows/sales plus farmer's market and buying lumber for the office, we're going to be busy. Whoo!

Halloween and Haunted Houses

I love haunted houses, but I'm a wimp! I don't know what it is, but I'm fascinated with fear and loathe it at the same time. Maybe that's normal.

I went to a haunted house (professional) a few years back, and at certain points I was pushing a friend out of my way to run away. I wasn't 12 by the way. At one point, a dude dressed as a creepy nun ran up to me, and I spurted out, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" Why? I have no idea. It just came out. I was scared of being touched. The actor started dancing around me saying, "Bad touch! BAAAD TOUCH!!!" and I shoved myself the rest of the way out. After leaving I asked if anyone wanted to go again and no one seemed to want to go back in with me...

This year I want to back to one really bad, but I want to dress up really creepy and act doubly creepy and see if I can freak out any of the actors. Thoughts?

MIO Composter on Sale at Target.com

A couple days ago I noticed that Target was having a sale on the MIO Composter ($25 down from $100). The ratings don't look so good, but it's because a lot of people didn't know it was for worm composting (vermicomposting). I've never tried worm composting, but it's hard to not hear about it. It seems like it's everywhere and people are raving over it. So I ordered 2. Plus if you log into your Chase Freedom Rewards account, you can get 5 bonus points for every dollar you spend at Target.com.

I was shocked to see them outside today! They shipped extraordinarily fast. I'm also very impressed by the modest amount of packaging. 1 cardboard shipping box, 1 bag, 1 piece of twine to secure the trays and lid together, and instructions/label. Very impressed. They're actually bigger than I thought they would be. The parts are also stamped with a recycling code, so when they eventually break, which I hope won't be for a while but you never know in this house, they can be recycled.

Now I have to order/find some worms and off I go!