New Year 2015

2014 was a hard year for me because my dad died. Looking back, the garden didn’t do so great either, probably because of neglect at some crucial times. I did manage to get a good crop of garlic, but the potatoes did lousy, the sweet potatoes got eaten by the deer, and the nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos) were fairly lousy as well. I didn’t get any Black Futsu squash, so I ended up giving away the rest of that packet of seed. I only got one Charentais melon, and no Moon and Stars Watermelons. All the beans did OK.

I’m still trying to figure out how to plant fall crops in August while it’s still hot and not have them fry in the sun or get eaten by caterpillars before it cools down. This year I used the frost blanket left over from last winter as a shade, draped over wire cages. That seems to have helped, but I'm still having trouble with caterpillars eating my greens. I didn’t get any collards this winter because of caterpillars eating them up, and the deer ate up my lettuce. The only green I’ve been harvesting so far is arugula, which the deer don’t seem to like.

All the fruit trees did OK last winter except the Key Lime, which got killed down to the ground. It sprouted back (I sure hope it’s not grafted), but we dug it up and put it back in a pot, where it will stay so it can stay inside in winter. We replaced it in the ground with a Kumquat tree from Costco, which is supposed to be a hardy breed of citrus. Right now it seems to be doing fine, and is covered in ripe fruit.

The good thing about gardening is there’s always next year. If 2014 wasn’t that great, maybe 2015 will be better. I can look back at the mistakes I made last year and try other things this year.

I did finish the raised beds in the front, but I haven’t put landscape fabric and mulch in the paths yet, and the Bermuda grass is really starting to move in. That’s not such a huge project, so I think it’s a realistic goal to get that done this year.

Building a deer proof fence around the front garden is a bigger project that might take more time. Especially since I’ll need my husband’s help with that, and he’s got a lot on his plate too. We also don’t have a new shed yet, but I think that’s higher on my husband’s priority list. In the meantime I’ll just have to keep using wire and deer repellant spray to protect my plants.

Also the To Do List is getting rainwater tanks and installing a greywater system of some sort.

We’ve lived in this house for almost two years now, and it’s become clear that the soil here is just not as good as it was at the house we were renting when I started this blog. I did get soil tests done to get hard data, and they showed the soil here isn’t as good, but also the plant growth shows it. I’ve now grown several of the exact same varieties of plants here as I grew there, and they just don’t do as well. 2010 was a bumper crop of a lot of things, and that was the one year I was gardening there that wasn’t a drought. The main variable here really seems to be location. It’s a shame, really. I think about whatever college students must be living in that rent house now that probably don’t appreciate how fertile that back yard is at all!

The only thing for me to do is just slowly work at improving the soil here. It’s better to have naturally good soil, but soil can also be improved. It just takes time. My husband recently found out about some kind of horse stable around here that is offering free manure to anyone willing to do all the work of hauling it away. That sounds tempting.

Other than that, I need to figure out what I'm going to grow this year, which I think I'll save for another post. I've been spending my break looking over seed catalogs again and again wondering what I should plant and trying to not go overboard ordering more seeds than I need.

The Cedar Moon and First Hard Freeze of this Winter

Last night it got down to 29 degrees, the first hard freeze of the winter. It's been a very mild winter so far, since we usually get our first killing freeze around Thanksgiving, not at the beginning of January.

I had one tomato plant survive the summer, and as you can see it is now mush, meaning last night really was our first "real" freeze, not like some of there other nights where it was maybe 31 or 30 degrees for a little while.

The peppers (and citrus trees) are tucked snugly under frost blanket. I've had peppers survive the winter before, so I'm confident I can get these to make it through as well.

The root crops (radishes, carrots, beets, parsnips, and turnips) are doing just fine. Before the cold front we got a good rain that I think really helped.

The Dwarf Grey Sugar peas are even starting to flower, while the Tall Telephone peas are looking good too.

The collards got badly eaten up, but they seem to have missed the kale. The kale is still growing really slowly, but is showing no signs of bug damage.

And I'm getting lots of seed catalogs! I intend to write a post soon about my New Year's plans for my garden in 2015.

The Mistletoe Moon

It's been a strange winter so far, if you can even call it a winter. It got down to 30 degrees one night on the week before Thanksgiving, which is when I harvested my sweet potatoes. It hasn't gotten anywhere near freezing again since. Some days it even got into the high 70's during the day.

The light frost we had wasn't even enough to kill the eggplants and tomatoes, and now the eggplants have started to grow new leaves back. They're in for a disappointment once we do get a killing freeze.

The peppers are also still going strong. I've been harvesting a lot of Serranos, which I think I'll make more fermented hot sauce out of.

The garlic and multiplier onions are also doing well. The wire has prevented the chickens from digging in them any more.

The root crops are doing well. I've started harvesting radishes. I've also got carrots, beets, parsnips, and turnips growing.

It's gotten cold enough to get rid of the bugs that were eating the greens, but now the deer have found them. They don't like the arugula, but ate the tops off of most of the red lettuce I had mixed in with it.

The kumquats (in the picture above) and Meyer lemons in the front are almost ripe. I'm thinking of making a Meyer lemon meringue pie for Yule, even though it's not that traditional. But they should be ripe by then.

I planted a lot of Tuscan kale in the back to save seed, and it's doing OK but growing very slowly. There's also a lot of weeds coming up back there.

The peas are starting to climb their trellises in the back. I planted two varieties: Tall Telephone and Dwarf Grey Sugar.

And I have some more winter crops in trays to plant later: fennel, cauliflower, and more kale and collards.

I already started my pepper plants for next year. I wonder when I should start my other nightshades. I usually start my tomato seeds around Christmas, but I'm feeling impatient with how warm it's been lately.

The Topaz Moon

October was so busy I missed doing an update for the Butterfly Moon. Now it's November, and the winter garden is planted, while the last remnants of the summer garden are running out of time before our first freeze, which usually occurs around Thanksgiving.

The sweet potatoes look good on top, but I'll see how good they did underground when it's time to harvest them right before the first frost.

The peppers are making a lot of fruit now that it's cooled down. I might have to make another batch of fermented hot sauce this year to use them up.

I'm glad that my artichoke plant is growing back. I was sure it had died over the summer, but as soon as it cooled down in fall, new sprouts appeared around the dead stump.

The eggplants have also starting fruiting again. This variety, Rosa Bianca, just hasn't been doing that well for me. I think it needs too much water, or something. Maybe I'll finally get a few good ones before it freezes, but I don't think I'll grow this variety again.

The Calico lima beans also started making more pods when it cooled down. I hope they also ripen before it freezes. These are the only plants in the back that survived the summer.

Now, on to the newcomers to the garden.

I have a patch of root crops such as radishes, carrots, and turnips in the front. They seem to be doing well, except for a lot of Bermuda grass invading around the edges.

I planed collards and other greens, and as usual, they're getting eaten up a lot by caterpillars and probably won't be safe until a freeze kills the bugs.

The garlic is just starting to sprout. I had to lay wire over them because the neighbor's chickens kept digging in the beds.

The peas are doing well. I planed Tall Telephone and Dwarf Grey Sugar this year.

By the next full moon the garden will have frozen!

The Harvest Moon

Monday was the Harvest Moon, which means fall is almost here. Of course it's still been in the high-90's, but today the first big cold front of fall is supposed to arrive, which is forecast to bring the temperature down by about 15 degrees. I can't wait!

There's not much left out in the garden, but what has survived the summer is probably good to go until it freezes in November or December.

I'm still not impressed with these Rosa Bianca eggplants. After producing some small fruits in the summer that went from purple to yellow-brown way too fast, I picked off all the remaining fruits and blossoms, to let the plants just concentrate on surviving the summer. Now that it's cooling down a little, they're starting to make more blossoms. I'm going to give them one more chance to make a nice crop in fall, but I'm thinking this is just not a good variety for me.

My peppers did lousy this year, and now I think it might be best to start the seeds in the fall, keep them in pots over winter, and then plant them in spring. I had a bumper crop the year I did that (somewhat unintentionally). I think they really liked germinating while the weather was still warm, and then seemed to do fine waiting over winter in their 4 inch pots before being planted as large, sturdy plants in spring.

Which means on my to-do list for this weekend is to start next year's peppers!

After I cut my tomatoes down to stumps, the Cherokee Purple tomatoes never grew back, but the cherry tomatoes look like they  might grow back in fall.  Maybe I'll even get a second harvest of them.

I sprayed I Must Garden brand deer repellent on the sweet potatoes, since it was recommended on Central Texas Gardener. It worked much better than I thought! It looks like the deer completely quit eating my sweet potatoes and they've gotten a chance to grow back a bit (though not yet back to how they were before the deer showed up). It smells to me like a mixture of cinnamon, mint, and garlic, which is not exactly the nicest smell, but apparently the deer think it smells much worse. And I only sprayed it once or twice, and that seems to have been enough. I might re-apply if it turns out that we get a heavy rain with this coming cold front.

The only thing left alive in the back garden is some of the Christmas Lima beans. I hope in fall they'll be able to recover a bit and give me a second crop.

I've been having trouble starting the fall crops in these trays. Some of the seedlings have been damping off, but I think birds have been pulling up some of them. I've never actually caught any in the act, but I know for sure birds have been stealing the tags! I've found them strewn around the yard. I got to the point where I couldn't tell some of my plants apart (is this broccoli, collards, or mustard?), but it didn't matter too much because I had to reseed a lot of them anyway. It's just hard having to start fall crops when it's still 100 degrees outside and then try to nurse them along until it finally cools down.

I wonder if it's even worth it to try to start them in August, or if I should just wait until it cools down. So few of them survive it might not be worth the extra month of growing time they get.

The Dog Moon

The Dog Moon is named for the Dog Days of Summer, when Sirius the Dog Star is prominent in the night sky, and it's really, really hot. It's not consistently at least 100 degree every day, if not a few degrees over.

The garden plants are looking pretty toasted out there.

I just harvested one Charentais melon that was about the size of a softball. We haven't eaten it yet, but it smells wonderful. There are two more on the vines, and a forth was doing OK until some type of bug bored into it. But I'm not growing this variety again. The seeds were given to me, but it's struggling in the heat.

The Rosa Bianca eggplants aren't doing too well either, and eggplants are supposed to like heat. The fruits get to be about tennis ball sized and then turn yellow. Aren't they supposed to be a large eggplant? I guess I should start picking them sooner, because eggplants turn bitter when they get yellow.

The mystery yellow cherry tomatoes that were supposed to be Dr. Wyche's Yellow but aren't are the only tomatoes still ripening fruits. And that's fairly typical of cherry tomatoes. They are tougher than large-fruited tomatoes.

I decided the Cherokee Purple tomatoes weren't going to produce any more fruits when it's this hot, so I pruned them back to stumps. That may have been a bit of a drastic move, but I heard that can actually help them survive the summer, and then they regrow in the fall for a second harvest before frost. The plants weren't looking so good anyway, so maybe it will be good for them to get some fresh growth.

I left one pod on each okra plant for seed saving, and now the first two or three are starting to mature and are ready to pick and get the seeds out. They need to be picked before they completely split open and the seeds spill out, but that has to be done wearing gloves because they're covered in irritating spiny hairs. The plants themselves have lost a lot of leaves. Some of them just fell off on their own (maybe because of the heat), but it looks like some got munched by deer, which surprised me.

I forgot to get a picture of the sweet potatoes in front, but they haven't really changed. They still love the heat as long as they get watered enough, and the deer are still eating anything that sticks out beyond the wire. I sprayed some "I Must Garden" brand deer repellant on them last week to see if that helps. Looking at the ingredients list, it's a mixture of rotten eggs, garlic, cinnamon oil, and peppermint oil. The peppermint and cinnamon make it smell nice to humans, but it's supposed to smell nasty to deer. I'll see if it works.

This is what's left of the cucumber vine. I got about three cucumbers off it, but now I'm letting it die. The cucumbers were getting bitter anyway.

The lima beans are the best looking beans. They quit making any more pods, but the plants are still green, which is better than the snap beans or yardlong beans.

The Tatume squash is wilting in the heat but still alive. The Black Futsu squash, on the other hand, looks completely dead. I was afraid a Japanese squash variety couldn't cut it.

Early August may be the hottest time of year, but it's also, ironically, time to start fall crops like broccoli, collards, and mustard greens. I have them right here, and they're already starting to sprout. They're being kept in the shade, and I think this year I'll use a shade cloth out in the garden when I transplant them. I'm still on a learning curve with getting fall crops to do well, because they need to be planted in such hot weather to mature in cool weather. I think the mistake I was making before was keeping them in pots too long, which I think was stunting them. This time I'll set them out earlier under a shade cloth set up over them and plenty of watering.

The Thunder Moon

I just drove right through a thunderstorm on my way home from work, but when I got here, it looks like it missed my house. Bummer.

The deer found my sweet potatoes, and munched the leaves off of everything that wasn't protected by wire.

I've still got tomatoes ripening, but it's probably too hot for any new fruit to form. The neighbor's chickens have been stealing a lot of them. I've caught them in the act, and they'll grab tomatoes and run off with them.

The Bishop's Hat peppers that survived the winter are starting to make little peppers. I think I'll plant all peppers in the fall from now on, and keep them in pots over the winter. The ones I planted in spring are still small.

The Rosa Bianca eggplants have some golfball-sized fruits on them. I hope they make it to full size. The chickens have pecked a couple of them.

I've also got three Charantais melons forming. They're about tennis ball sized right now. I'm only growing these because someone gave us seeds. They're from France, so I'm afraid they might not be able to take the heat.

The Gardenville okra is like, "Hot? What do you mean hot? It feels great out here!" I just ate some the other day. I like how this variety is short and fat instead of long and slender. Seems to stay tender longer that way.

Here's Basil checking on the cactus garden in the front by the driveway.

In the back, the cucumbers think it's too hot. I got a few fruits, but since then they've been aborting. Oh well, they were getting bitter anyway.

The pole beans are also not looking so good in the summer heat. I just hope they survive the summer and pick up again in the fall. Pictured are the snap beans. The lima beans look better.

This is my one watermelon. It's about the size of a softball. I had another one, but it split. Hope this one makes it.

The squash also aren't looking that great. The Tatume pictured here isn't so bad. I've gotten a bit of fruit off them, and now they're probably going to take a break and grow back in the fall. The Black Futsu hasn't been doing well at all. I should have know a Japanese variety wouldn't like the Texas heat.

Last, the Malabar spinach is still growing very slowly. I did start them late, but they're supposed to like heat.

We've just started getting close to 100 over the last few days. Yesterday it finally hit 100 on my thermometer, but not today. Might later in the week. It's not too bad to make it all the way to mid-July before getting to the century mark, and we've also had almost-normal amounts of rain. Not too bad at all.