First up in the garden...

Cauliflower. Took 4 days for it to sprout. I planted two rows because it's one of my favorite veggies. Raw, steamed, with cheese sauce, mashed with butter, any way you fix it it's good.

Rain today! Some areas got several inches. We got a little over 3/4" in the garden but that's not bad! Came with lots of thunder and lightning. I was worried about the lightning with all the dead trees in the woods around here.

Dinner tonight: meatless spaghetti sauce over mashed sweet potatoes and homemade garlic bread. Don't knock it 'til you try it. Yummy!

When can't you garden in Houston?

Answer: only when you don't want to.

Key: orange = start seeds

yellow = start plants

green = harvest

Fall garden

I'm glad I live in a climate with a long summer and longer growing season but this is ridiculous. Temps back in the upper 90s and 100s this week. Weatherman says we may get a break next weekend, but what does that mean? Normal temps? High 80s? And, please God, some rain!

The garden is cleaned up, weeded and organic again, or at least as organic as it can be in a suburban yard. Who knows what lies beneath the nice organic dirt and mulch I've added?

Harvested yesterday: 6 oz asparagus, 4 lb sweet potatoes, 2 lb horseradish

I'm just now planting the seeds that should go in early September, but it's been too hot. It's still too hot but the daylight hours are getting shorter and that's part of what triggers the plants to flower. It's a touchy issue this year deciding when to plant.

Planting today: Scarlet Nantes carrots, Tomatillo Verde, Lipstick pimiento peppers, Snow Crown cauliflower, Di Cicco broccoli, and three varieties of Irish potatoes: red, white and purple. I'm putting the potatoes in a new garden on the southeast side of the house to try to keep the vines from taking over and shading the other veggies. Potatoes are a greedy garden crop.

Need to obtain artichoke, lettuce and cilantro seeds to plant soon. Should I try sugar cane?

Question: why do my onion sets and garlic never bulb?

Question: why does dill burn up and die so quickly? I've tried shade, sun, water, less water, pot plants, garden plants, seed starts, plant start. <*sigh*>

Question: why do Brussels sprouts never flower in my garden?

Sweet Potato Queen

Four pounds of sweet potatoes from the garden this morning. They were just sitting there with their little heads peeking above the dirt, waiting to be pulled out, washed off, and (eventually) eaten. The biggest one weighs one pound all by itself.

Still not using any chemicals, pesticides or non-organic fertilizers and all is going well. Pests seem to take care of themselves with the good guys munching on the bad guys before they can do significant damage.

It's a hot day, high in the high 90s and the year-long drought continues.

I'm baaack!

It's been a while! I've been gardening all along and have learned a lot - what to do, what not to do, and what happens when you fall and hurt your knee. I had some mulch put in my garden last spring when I had a sprinkler system installed and it killed everything in the garden. Then I fell and tore something in my knee and can't kneel anymore, which makes gardening really hard since I don't have a raised garden. Then the sweet potatoes that I planted two years ago decided to reappear and take over the garden. Plus the weeds. Then one of the coldest winters happened last year and now the hottest summer on record with days and days of 105 degrees and up, plus wild fires in the area and on and on. What a mess! So, on a relatively cool morning, when the temps were still in the 70s I got out there and weeded, pulled up the sweet potatoes and now have a garden ready for planting, which may happen this weekend. Temps are still in the high 90s, so it's about 10 degrees hotter than it should be but I think we'll be OK due to the sprinkler system. We're rationing water so I can only water two days a week but I may sneak in a few extra waterings while the seedlings take hold.

Fall in Houston (sort of)

I've planted more in the fall garden. The beans, corn, carrots, tomatoes and a little bit of the quinoa have come up. I pulled up the summer okra and cut off the heads to let them dry for seed saving. Still have one jalapeno plant out there just to see what it does and how long it produces. Planted some yellow potatoes and red potatoes today. Broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts next weekend. Right now the garden looks so barren but it will be lush again in about a month.

Ran out of Hurricane Jam last week so bought 4 lb. strawberries, harvested pomegranets and lemons from the trees in the yard, and used up the last of the candied ginger in the pantry and made a new batch. Recipe is on Sept. 27, 2008 blog. I invented the recipe last year using whatever was on hand after Hurricane Ike.

Summer came and went. Too hot. Too dry. Got some tomatoes, potatoes, jalapenos, and tons of okra. I'm now letting the okra go to seed for next year's crop.

Today I planted fall tomatoes - Early Girl, 50 day variety, Baccicia, 60-day green beans, and quinoa. I hope to get enough quinoa after first frost to mill flour and make some bread or bagles or something. Just a fun experiment, plus quinoa is so colorful and pretty. I planted it in the front bed behind one of the asparagus beds.

Soon I'll plant cauliflour, potatoes, broccoli, carrots and maybe try brussels sprouts again. It doesn't get cold enough for cabbage to "head" so I don't think I'll try that again. Fletcher liked my pickled radishes so I may plant some more of those.

Hot Peppers and Other Stuff

It has been "awfully hot", which is the way the weather bureau describes each day's 100 degree forecast. We're rationing water in The Woodlands but I'm able to hand water the garden as often as needed. Everything is growing well. Getting loads of jalapeno peppers and okra. The peppers aren't very spicy (my kind of peppers!) and are delicious in anything or just as a snack with a bit of cheese. The okra have been going into pickle jars and are very tender and yummy. I've even converted picky eater daughter to like pickled okra, although she did decline to take a jar home with her. I have to pick the tomatoes while still green and not quite full sized to keep the birds from pecking them to pieces, but they ripen nicely on the window sill in the kitchen. The red potatoes didn't do too well but I think it's because I over fertilized them and burned up the plants. I got a few potatoes but not as much as I had hoped for. The sweet potato vines are all over the place. The squash is growning pretty well and the vines are running down the walkway about 5' or so, growing fast every day. I've only gotten a few squash vegetables so far. Some of them get covered with a black fungus or mold before they mature. Don't know what that's all about but will research. A rat is out and about. I've seen him a couple of times on the back porch but haven't seen any crop damage from him. Still, he's repulsive. He won't eat the poison! Smart little bugger. I sent the cat out after him one day. Cat stalked stealthly, as cats do, went into the bushes where the rat had disappeared a few minutes before, the bushes shook wildly and the cat came flying out looking scared to death. Round One to Rat.